Last Hope
by Firako-chan
Summary: Someone's after Earth once again, and senshi from multiple dimensions are left as refugees in the gundam world, trying to deal with this dire threat. Rei-centric. RH
1. Discovery

There was something about the smell of this world that she just didn't like. The trained senshi scowled as she took another whiff of the foul air. Just a little farther down, and she would be within striking range.

"Omae o korosu."

She felt the lukewarm metal touch her face in the complete darkness before she heard or sensed anything. How could this have happened? She had been sure that her quarry, the elusive perfect soldier, had been at least 35 ft ahead of her, and about to go around the next bend mere seconds ago. How could he be so fast?

The moment that she stood there, looking straight at her future killer, and not being able to see him seemed to drag on forever. They always said your life flashed before your eyes, but for Rei, it was only the events that had led her to this strange place.

* * *

It had been after a quiet battle in the park, one that seemed almost too easy, and the senshi were about to leave. They were interrupted, however by a flood of noise and orange fire. Sailor Mars had been acutely aware of the explosion, and strangely comforted by its flames. She thought of her princess first and foremost, like the rest of the senshi and Tuxedo Kamen. She closed her eyes, finally surrendering to the destruction of fire. 

Suddenly, the senshi of fire's communion with death ended as the sound of the explosion cleared from her ears and another explosion burst somewhere overhead. But even in her confused state, Rei could tell that it came from a long distance away. She opened her eyes. A plane buzzed overhead. Cars and motorcycles zoomed by on a nearby street. She looked around quickly and sighed in a relief when she saw Sailor Moon. Sobbing or not, she was alive, praise be, her princess was still alive.

But their situation was dire. They were stuck, in the middle of some war torn world, and Rei alone had to defend, protect, provide for Serenity. She panicked. How could she do this? She wasn't smart like Ami, not strong like Makoto; she was all alone. They were doomed. Suddenly, all trivial thoughts disappeared with a searing pain to her head. She was here, she had her duty, and she would do whatever it took to accomplish it. Sometimes, Rei thought back to that moment, and thought that maybe her friends had sent her some of their own spirits to help her. Ever since that moment, Rei had found herself with more of Ami's intelligence, Minako's ingenuity, and Makoto's strength. She had tucked away all emotions and done her job. Every moment since then seemed distant, and blurry, every action and event a trivial detail of an overwhelming duty: protecting the princess. She couldn't even remember exactly who had taught her to shoot, or precisely when she had gotten the scar that ran over her left eye, or the face of the man who had promised her 10 grand to shoot Hiiro Yuy.

* * *

Thinking back to the present, she knew she'd have to do something, otherwise, this man would shoot her, and then what would happen to Usagi? She made up the quickest story she could think of, hoping that something close to the truth would do to at least distract him, while she found some way to salvage this disaster of a mission.

"I'm sorry. I need help."

His only reply was silence from the other side of the deadly weapon.

"There are people after me, and I need sanctuary for me and my friend."

"Why did you bring a gun?"

"I needed some self-defense to get here."

"Why should I believe you?"

"Because, now, we are even."

A fireball gathered in her hand, illuminating the area, and giving the two their first views of each other. Rei held her eyes to the disturbing prussian blue ones in front of her, even as she felt her stomach drop out of her body.

A/N: Alright, that's the beginning. Fun, huh? Perhaps I'll explain more later. Yes, it's Rei/Hiiro. We'll get the other characters in here someday, maybe. Maybe not.


	2. Entrance

Disclaimer: (aren't these dumb?) This is one story, where I don't own anything as of yet. 

Hiiro Yuy could not believe this. The encounter had been breathtakingly normal, find, query, shoot the intruder. But then she had pulled some sort of torch out of thin air, and now he was in a stalemate with the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Scratch that thought, 01. You can't afford thoughts like that, not now, when it's shoot and get torched, or wait until your gun gets hot enough to burn your flesh. He wasn't afraid of the pain, but the perfect soldier could not risk third degree burns on his right hand. In a single fluid movement, he stuck his gun back in his belt, and grabbed her wrists instead.

"Fine, then. If what you say is true, why have you been tracking me in here for the last half an hour?"

"There was a man, he offered me ten grand, just to kill you. But I realize now, that I can't do that without getting myself killed."

"You said someone was after you."

"Obviously, someone was trying to get me killed, if they sent me after you. They never told me you were so silent, so quick." Rei felt shameless, stroking the man's ego in this petty way, but her goal was to stay alive, and that she would do.

It was at this point, Hiiro took another look at the illuminating flame, and realized she carried no torch, the fire erupting straight from her palm. He dropped her wrist, started and scared.

"What are you?"

"A...well, a sorceress. That's what you would call it, magic. It's not me I'm asking for. It's a friend. She's helpless, and I can't protect her well enough. I can pay you."

"Drop the fire." She did so immediately. He took out his gun again. He should shoot her. Kill her now before she turned on him, and his friends. But the image of the fire licking her fingertips still dazzled his mind, and he did something he had never done before.

"Now, come with me."

As they briskly made their way through what Rei could only guess was a hallway in the complete darkness, Rei couldn't help think that this, if nothing else was a sign of how the times had changed her. Before the...accident, she would've fought, and probably gotten herself killed, but now showing some of that negotiative patience that Minako had but was rarely forced to use, she realized that getting herself killed would only leave Usagi defenseless.

Rei's train of thought was interrupted when a door flew open, flooding all the surroundings with a painfully bright light. With much effort, she managed not to blink, or turn her head as her pupils shrunk to miniscule proportions.

"Quatre, I found this one in the entrance sector, and she managed to follow me into restricted sector D. I would've shot her, but, well, she's quite persuasive." Quatre blinked. It didn't surprise him that Hiiro had found the secret entrance to his office and disturbed his work, but he had never in his association with the man once heard Hiiro be so elusive with words.

"What do you mean, persuasive?"

"Show him that trick, fireyes."

This time all three occupants were astounded, and anyone else in hearing would've been equally so. Hiiro himself could not believe what he had just said. God, he had the most powerful woman, no human, in the earth sphere throwing herself at him, and he was faltering because of some half-trained assassin, with beautiful eyes that took the flame and made it their own. Wait, no, dammit! Bad, bad thought. You can't do this, 01, it's much too dangerous! His eyes narrowed in anger and resolution, his teeth clenched quite as hard as the grip on his gun.

"Just do it!"

Rei would've found the time to laugh, but she was much too confused. In her torrential whirlwind of thought from the time she had found the nerve to threaten the perfect soldier until now, she had always thought of his as ice-eyes, that emotionless Prussian blue. She cringed at herself as she made a small flame emerge from her palm. Was this another 'gift' from Minako, or Makoto? Dreaming needlessly over guys at the worst possible times? She purposefully didn't hold back the emotion from her face or voice as she attempted to plead with the softer, more vulnerable looking blond, Quatre Winner, she assumed.

"Please, I'm not from here. I was stranded here with my helpless friend, and I've only been trying to protect her. You protect your world, and so do I. When she dies, my being will be useless, for I was born merely to make sure she lives."

"So you are her guard?"

"That's right."

"And you want us to help protect her?" A compassionate look filled his eyes as he walked towards her. "Bring her here. We'll do what we can. Alright? I assume you can get out on your own."

"Thanks. I'll be back soon."

"Fine, then." He patted her arm reassuringly, and Hiiro's look of suspicion and anger turned to one of almost amusement. Rei nodded to both Quatre and Hiiro, and took off through the same passage through which they had entered. Hiiro's eyes followed her path until he was fairly sure she was out of hearing.

"Tracking device, Quatre?"

"What can I say? I was curious."

"You get more like me every day."

(end of chapter)

A/N: Wow, I finished a chapter. I'm not very good at writing in chapter format, but I'll live. Thanks for the reviews (wow, three!) And, when I said maybe, I did mean that maybe the other senshi'll be in here. I wasn't planning on letting this story get away. Alright, there will tend to be a good deal of OOC here, but I think I've justified that. I don't like stories that portray Quatre as an outright wuss anyway. He's kind, but not dumb. Also, having SM characters in the GW world is bound to stir things up anyway, right?


	3. Responsibility

Disclaimer: Assorted characters and ideas belong to assorted people, none of which are me. La- di- da. 

Rei managed to get out of the building in fairly short order. She knew she had to make it quick. Once the enemy, still unknown at this point, had found she had left to get herself killed by Hiiro, they would swoop down and get Usagi without delay. From sheer necessity at this point, her speed had nearly exceded human capabilities. She vaguely remembered someone offering to teach her to break through security locks and hotwire cars. Man, she wished she hadn't turned them down. But, now, she was here, and she was actually thankful for the teary screams coming from the rubble that had once been their 'house'.

"USAGI! Hold on, I'm coming!" She hit a state of overdrive, and removed her gun from her holster, starting a flame in her left hand at the same time. Usagi was doing her best against the favored choice of a tentacled monster, this one digustingly gooey, dragging her into some vortex or portal of some kind, but there was only so much she could do. She summed up the creature with a glance, and decided her gun would be of little use. She holstered it quickly, shooting her left hand forward simultaneously, a jet of hot yellow fire emerging from her palm. As soon as the monster had let up on it's pull on Usagi, she ended the fire and prepared for a Flame Sniper, releasing multiple arrows into the massive slimeball at once. A tentacle shot at out her immediately, and she jumped. A drop of ooze was flung onto her pants, and a hole was immediately burned through them. Obviously, this thing used two different types of appendage for fighting and capturing. Midair, she became aware of another presence, right before three men entered her range of vision. One with a long chestnut-colored french braid, another with a black ponytail, and the last, Hiiro Yuy, cold eyes not a bit wide in surprise.

"What in the hell is that thing?" the man with the braid exclaimed, too astounded to do anything but stare, the chinese one, stared as well, but remained silent. It was Hiiro who noticed the tentacle that snuck towards Rei while she was distracted, hitting it with a perfect shot. The bullet didn't really do any hard to the monster, but it gave chance for Rei to jump out of the way. Before she hit the ground, she had fired off a long series of attacks, that still hadn't helped Usagi's situation in anyway. Hiiro noticed the blond girl's presence, and ran to aid Rei in her rescue, but he had been so distracted by Rei's fireworks display, that he failed to notice one of those ubiquitous tentacles, which grabbed him by the ankle and used his own momentum to fling him into the black vortex. Rei's eyes flamed again. Why had the monster taken Hiiro? It would be Usagi they wanted, or even her, Rei. She lept toward the center of the creature, and a long sword appeared suddenly in her hand. she dove, and plunged the blade deep into the heart of the creature. It gave a horrible cry and was gone, leaving a collapsed Usagi sobbing on the ground. The vortex remained, ominous and demanding, and Rei knew her responibility even as the black haired man spat it in her face.

"Stupid onna, you were too weak! It is an injustice that a soldier like Hiiro Yuy should be taken in your dumb fight. You must go find him and bring him back, it is what is right." Rei did not cringe at the man's harsh words, but did not anger either. It had been her fight, and now Hiiro's disappearance was her problem. The braided man spoke more kindly, but still bluntly.

"I have to agree with Wufei here. You're the one that's gotta rescue Hiiro. But I seem to remember you made a deal with our friend Quatre involving this blonde. So, to be fair, we'll take care of your friend while you take care of ours. Don't worry, she'll be in good hands."

Rei didn't know why she trusted him. It seemed to reason that she wouldn't trust him, this person she had never met and had a distinctly, well, rakish look to him. But it seemed she had no other choice. She only nodded, turned, and lept into the seemingly eternal darkness.

A/N: Alright, I finally got this chapter out. Thanks for all the reviews. I think I might have the other senshi, but I haven't really decided if they're dead or not. That won't affect whether they're in it, but it might affect the way I insert them. Heh, I also don't like a lot of the common portrayals of Duo. I mean, he is more well, light-hearted than some of the other pilots, but he isn't a clown or anything. I like having Duo as a very down-to-earth, somewhat sarcastic kind of person. Anyways, a lot of people may not agree. Also, I might mention, that Usagi isn't going to end up with a pilot, since the entire reason Rei has it so hard is that Usagi's grieving so hard, she's hardly good for anything. Er...so next chapter: Rei looks for Hiiro in the lair of the enemy.


	4. Rescue

Disclaimer: Rei, Usagi, GW, etcetera belong to someone else. You know, I don't really remember anymore, so if you really wanna know, read someone else's disclaimers. 

Rei quickly landed on solid ground, somewhat surprised, and definitely suspicious. No long drop, no deadly spikes; well, Hiiro would've set off any instant traps that had been left here for Usagi. The sword in her hand glowed slightly, illuminating the surroundings. She looked at it closely, and remembered. It had belonged to Jadeite in the Silver Millennium. Perhaps, this was some part of Mamoru left to her. She dimmed the light with a thought, and just as it went completely dark, a gunshot rang through the air. Ah, now she had something to go on. She headed towards where it had come. Another shot followed it. She smirked to the emptiness; they wouldn't find Hiiro so easy a captive. Until his bullets ran out.

She continued to run towards the gunshots until they were very near. She knew that the enemy would know she was here, but these youmas probably wouldn't. She was able to sneak up on the edge of the battle, and took out the first two with a single swipe of her sword. With that, she shoved and thrusted her way to Hiiro, getting rid of several of the bothersome monsters. The gunshots had temporarily stopped when she had first made her entrance, but she swirled around as she heard one more gunshot, just making eye contact with the icy-eyes behind the smoking pistol as the bullet passed through the place where the creature she had just killed had once stood, piercing her right shoulder. She broke the contact and swirled around to decapitate one more youma that was just coming up on her. Continuing the circular motion to bring her back to Hiiro, she made an aside to him, as he watched her start some strange movements with her sword.

"Unfortunately, as you've probably found, gunshots aren't too effective on this sort of enemy."

She concentrated back on the battle, putting the sword back in it's place, wherever that may be, throwing her hands out, and raising a ring of fire around the both of them. Two monstrous hulks, covered in armor, broke out, to attack them, and were immediately burned to ashes. The remaining creatures backed off, scared of obliteration. Rei frowned, and Hiiro thought he nearly heard a growl, as the fire shield expanded, faster than the youma could run, destroying every single one of them. However, Rei was drained, and Hiiro could tell. First her fingers drooped in exhaustion, then her hands, and arms, and he only just caught her before her entire body went limp. He only spared a couple seconds to wonder at how light she was in his arms, before he realized that her firewall was closing in on the two of them. Somehow, he couldn't move his mouth to shout at the one time in his life when a thousand bullets wouldn't do him any good. In his mind, the possibility was nonexistent, but still, he thought with all his strength of mind, whatever control what was ther.

"Come on, fire-eyes, this isn't the way to go. You have to DO something."

A/N: Tee-hee. that was fun. sorry it took forever, but well, school, band, the everlasting college/scholarship search. you get the picture. I'll probably have the next chappie up soon, as well. Thanks for all the reviews, and as of yet, I still have yet to decide whether the other senshi will physically be in here. And, well, as to why they took Hiiro, it was just a stupid monster. None of the Sailor Moon one-show monsters seemed to be very smart anyway.


	5. Return

Disclaimer: That's right, I'm really a popular manga artist/successful anime corporation and I really own this stuff. Um...just kidding! 

Silky strands of hair against his face, once soft skin, hardened on the hand now entwined with his. A warm, soft breath in his face. Not a common dream for Hiiro Yuy to say the least. He wondered at the sensations that lingered with him even now that he was conscious. His eyes shot open quickly as they did whenever he woke, to stare into a sleeping face that he had known only shortly, but of which each lovely intricacy was already engraved in his mind. Rei, that...place, the fire. He looked around, seeing the familiar surroundings of downtown. He felt the arm which encircled her small waist and hand still entwined with hers seem to burn, without pain, but left them there as me maneuvered himself into a sitting position, holding her up. Her eyes blinked several times, then rested in a half-open position.

"Ice-eyes...you're alive."

"We're alive," he echoed, numbly. She never heard him; she had already drifted back to sleep. A rain-drop hit her cheek, rolling off, like one of the tears she no longer shed. He lifted her up, and carried her...home...through the storm, her words repeating themselves in her mind against the background of rain hitting pavement like a trite movie soundtrack.

The first time Rei and Hiiro had arrived together at the gundam team's lair, the situations had been quite different. This time, Wufei opened the front door to see Rei cradled in Hiiro's arms, and both of them soaked. Wufei's eyes were already narrowed to the point of nonexistence, but had they not been, they would've narrowed farther.

"So. Just as I thought, Hiiro Yuy has to rescue the weak onna again."

"She saved my life," Hiiro said, in a voice barely more than a whisper, as he brushed by Wufei, the black-haired boy's face contorted in a mixture of surprise and disgust. Wufei stood there briefly, watching Hiiro continue down the entrance hallway before slamming the door shut and following them, yet making no effort to catch up. The door to Quatre's office was open, and Hiiro nudged it wider to where he could carry Rei through. He found both Quatre and the blonde in a quiet, yet seemingly personal chat. As they both looked up at the interruption, the blond girl rushed over, bursting into tears at the same moment. Hiiro turned his head indifferently; the girl's sobs touched only his annoyance, not like fire of Rei's eyes, ant their quiet, strong plea. He raised his voice to be heard over the high- pitched screams of the blonde's crying.

"Quatre, where will she sleep?"

Quatre paused, though only momentarily. This is closer to the normal Hiiro, he thought. Quatre knew from the sentence, that the black-haired fire warrior was not dead, or seriously wounded, but just need to rest, and that Hiiro needed to know where to set her down, so he himself could get away.

"I'll take her, Hiiro," he said, quickly calculating the appropriate form of action.

Hiiro gave her up with a trace of reluctance deep in his psyche. He knew however that Quatre and the other girl would have soft arms, gentle hands, and soothing words; none of which he could offer. He turned away quickly, walking briskly away from the strangely moving scene while the sobbing grew fainter and fainter, eventually disappearing completely. He had meant to contemplate other things, important things, like what those creatures had been, why his gun hadn't been effective, the firewall she had created, and finally how they had managed to survive, but try as hard as he might, his mind kept drifting back to the first traces of panic that had emerged in his mind as the fire nearly smothered them, and her words.

"Ice-eyes, you're alive."

For one of such few words and emotions, even that simple statement could mean oh, so much.

A/N: You know, when I put the top category of this story as Drama and the secondary one as romance, I really did mean to write it that way. Really, I did! but well, I guess I'm just a romantic at heart. Well, I got some really cool ideas to put a clever loop in the storyline, and they'll probably make you hate me, but just remember, I said this would be Rei/Hiiro, and I really do mean that. I promise. Cross my heart and hope my account to get deleted.

BTW. thanks for the reviews. I'm pretty sure I am going to include at least one other real physical character in here. Also, don't think Wufei won't get his comeuppance. The thing is that, Rei's temper has slowed a bit when concerning herself. You'll just have to wait until Wufei starts to insult Usagi insert monkey island(tm) evil laugh here Fira Khushrenada


	6. Unacceptable

Disclaimer: This story is to GW/SM what the Star Wars novels are to Star Wars. Except not condoned. And not paid for. And a whole lot shorter. And probably not as good. And substantially altered characterizations, plotlines, and feasible occurrences. 

The dark-haired figure slunk quickly in and out of the shadows, annoyance growing with every step; dark eyes darkened as the destination neared. Enough was enough, this was going to end. Now. An impatient hand reached out and flung the door open, eyes challenging the occupants with defiant demand.

Usagi didn't know what to do. In a continuous state of panic from the loss of her friends, her soulmate, and a good deal of her power, any little disturbance, confrontation, intimidation was likely to crumble her fragile state, and here was that man, Wufei, intruding into her and Rei's room and pointing a gun at her head.

"Onna, I don't know what you problem is, besides being weak and stupidly sentimental, but your incessant screeching disturbs me and my comrades. It will stop now, or I will make you stop."

Usagi only 'oh'ed softly before recommencing her crying.

"Onna, did you hear me?" At this point, Wufei's voice was raised to a commanding and violent level, a result of his rage and impatience. He heard only a rustling of sheets before an arm closed around his neck.

"What do you think you're doing?" Rei never waited for an answer. She recoiled, then slammed her forearm into his neck, her momentum propelling them through the door, pinning him up, off his feet against the hallways wall.

"How dare you? She has suffered greater losses than you have ever known. You shall never, EVER, do so much as disturb her again. Do you understand?"

"You cannot threaten me."

"If you don't understand, I can prevent you from ever speaking another word to her again, you know." She raised her free hand, not fisted, but completely open, ignoring the pain that shot through her shoulder where the bullet had been removed. He knew she was going to break his jaw. She pulled back, her rage blinding her to do what she'd regret later, when she felt slightly chilly fingers on both arms. The figure behind her applied a bit of pressure, and Rei's arms came down, unresisting. Wufei, surprised, fell to the ground, and quickly stumbled to his feet, backing up slowly, his gun pointing at her until he turned a corner and disappeared. Rei was incredibly relieved at that point, glad she had not done anything violent. But with Hiiro this close, she couldn't really think of what to say.

"Your fingers are cold."

"I'm sorry-"

"Thank you," she interrupted, quickly and quietly. Hiiro turned away, even though she still wasn't looking back at him now, but his hands remained on her arms. He hadn't known really what he had come across, or what he was going to do, but he had done what seemed natural and it seemed to work. His breath stopped short as she quickly turned and wrapped him close and he was thrown off balance. He regained his breath and poise, pausing tentatively, then slowly putting his arms around her waist and returning the gentle embrace. Feeling the fear and panic, so cleverly disguised by her face and actions seep from her body to his, he knew this was her way of crying, so different from her loud friend. Just letting her hang on, as he did the same, Hiiro was bewildered, it was a completely different feeling. The ache in his chest was not one of injury or pain, and the compulsion in his arms to draw her tighter to him, never letting her go, was unlike any obsession he had ever had. Already, better than anyone else in the world, he knew her. And cared about her. He did wonder, momentarily at least, where it would go from here, but for now he was happy to let this moment last forever.

A/N: More mush. I swear I'm going to include some Drama, and Action. Hey, wait, there was some action in this chapter, you saw it. Yeah, Wufei got his beatdown. And I do realize that Rei's comment to Wufei about Usagi's loss wasn't completely fair, and that'll come up later. And plot, I promise, there will be a plot, I dunno about a conclusion, though, this thing will probably go on forever.


	7. Teamwork

Diclaimer: Hmmm, not mine, not mine...and oh, yeah...not mine. 

Rei pressed her face against the cold window as the streets, old familiar friends of hers, passed by. She had left Usagi with Duo, somehow both girls felt comfortable with this pretty, amusing boy, though she knew and Usagi didn't, how deadly he was. Hiiro was in the front seat driving, while Wufei sat in the passenger seat, and Quatre shared the backseat with Rei. She sat up and looked ahead as they changed directions drastically. Her eyes met Hiiro's in the rear view moment before she wrenched away her eyes. Hiiro shifted his gaze to Quatre, on Rei's right.

"Why is Rei coming anyway?" Rei smiled to herself. It was great progress from the pronouns Hiiro usually used. She waited for Quatre's reply and Hiiro's reaction.

"Rei's signing up with us. We'll show Treize what she can do, and he'll put her on call with us."

"Quatre won't let us stay here for free, afterall." Rei explained, smirking slightly. Quatre had of course offered free board, but had also correctly counted on Rei not to accept any charity.

"Huh. I'm sure Treize will be excited."

"Who is this guy anyway?" Rei asked, still not fully understanding the history of this group or this world.

"As you've probably guessed, he's our boss, in a way. Hiiro still hates him, because he was our enemy in the old wars. Anyways, he's good at what he does. However, he's not really the excitable type."

"You haven't seen Rei fight."

"He will in a second. Something's coming. From above."

"A friend of yours?"

"One of those monsters after me and Usagi? Yes."

The next moment, they all heard the thud of a figure landing on the vehicle's roof, and the scrape of claws on the metal. Hiiro hit the gas, and they went speeding under the highway, the creature on the roof was knocked off the top and fell to the ground, effectively stopping traffic anyway, so no one really noticed when Hiiro made a swift U-turn, and came to a halt, quickly jumping out of the car, the others rapidly following suit. A large black demon stood in front of them, wings extended, and claws out. A steady stream of red fire poured out of Rei's outstretched arms, as her instincts took over. The flood of flame didn't hit the demon straight on, however, it wasn't fast enough to avoid so much fire. The beast took it all on its right wing, basically destroying its flight capabilities.

"Geez, these things are inefficient. If I ever get wings, they'll have armor."

"Er...Rei, can we talk about your future plans later? Because, I have a feeling that a gun won't work to well on one of these things."

"Right. Here take this." The same sword slid out of her hand, and she threw it to Hiiro. "Blades work." If on cue, two curved katanas slid out of sheaths in Wufei's sleeves and he seemed to take well to this sort of fighting, he danced in and out of the goblin's reach while Rei and Hiiro carefully crept around behind it. It was strange in a way, the seamless teamwork, although their entire relationship had been only a rocky one of a week or so. Suddenly, Rei and Hiiro swerved silently aside, Rei to set the left wing on fire, tearing it with her fire- ringed arrows, while Hiiro jumped onto the monster's back, and plunged the sword deep into its back, then jumped off, yanking the sword downward, effectively tearing the bottom half of the creature in half. The three hopped out of the way, as it fell to the ground. Rei motioned Hiiro and Wufei away from the carcass while a stream of marked papers flew from her hand, landing all over the body. She reached down to touch one, and soon the entire thing was in ashes. She turned around, walking away in disgust when she gasped, something akin to panic crossing her face. "Usagi - they're attacking her too..."

A/N: I know. It's really beem forever, and I'm sorry, and no, there's no fluffiness in this chapter...but there was some action, and okay, so it was pretty short, but short rather than none, eh? I'm still working on my actual plot, enemies, etc...but I am actually writing again, so that's okay. Don't ask about the whole Treize being alive. I think I've mentioned it (or maybe I haven't) that both halves of the crossover are bound to be slightly AU, so there you go. I think I may have the next chapter ready a little bit sooner. Please review, and thanks for all the old.


	8. Solo battle

Disclaimer: My homemade trebuchet is mine. GW/SM are not. Although, I've considered kidnapping Hiiro and hiding him in my closet for my own dissipated interests. 

Chapter 8.

Rei looked to Hiiro, her face contorted in a paralyzed fear. They would have gone after Usagi too, and she had no way to save her princess. He snapped into action, immediately taking what he deemed as the appropriate action.

"Quatre, Wufei, I need the car. Are you coming?"

"We'll work clean up, and head over to Treize's. You go on, Hiiro, and meet us at headquarters," Quatre replied, effectively giving Hiiro the go-ahead.

Neither of Rei nor Hiiro wasted any time, and covered the distance to their vehicle in seconds. Hiiro hit the accelerator, and Rei was nearly thrown out of her seat. Hiiro's driving now didn't even compare to how he had driven thus far. They were darting in and out of oncoming traffic for half the ride, and the rest of the time they disturbed rows upon rows of poultry salesmen, just setting up their stands for morning business. But the destruction turned out to be worth the ride. Rei's eyed soared upward in awe as she saw the dark MS tower above the compound's buildings, a bright green energy weapon spiraling in its distinctly human-like arm, one stroke impaling one creature that was leaping toward the 'head' of the machine and another that had crept onto its shoulder. Both fell to the ground with a sickening splat, but just as quickly, a swarm of winged creatures, like the goblin who had attacked the gang's car, came charging forward. Neither could help but cringe at the screech of their strong claws against the gundamian alloy, but it managed to bring both of them back to action.

"Hiiro.what is that?"

"It's what we call a gundam. We'll give you a grand tour someday. For now, though, we should get going."

Rei shook her head at herself again, and hopped out of her already open car door, Hiiro quickly following suite. She took a look at the terrain, and the still plentiful youma here and there, all still focused intently on the gundam. She identified two main groups, then looked to Hiiro, and was suddenly puzzled.

"Do you.still have my sword?" Hiiro also looked perplexed, staring intently at his hand, where he had last held the sword. As he turned it over, the double-edged long sword fell out, and almost hit the ground before he caught it. Both of their eyes went wide, and the two of them just stood there as the two groups of youma were distracted towards their lone figures on what had turned into the battleground. They nodded, postponing amazement to a more convenient time and set off in opposite directions.

Hiiro ran toward the collective uglies that were simply waiting fairly far away from the action. and set to it. The heavy steel of the blade seemed light in his arms, as each swing cleaved away and arm, a head, a tentacle. Eventually he was surrounded by only the largest three of them, each emitting a swirling cloud of dust and gases that clogged his nose and irritated his eyes, which naturally started to water. Of course, ever Hiiro-like, he refused to drop his guard or wipe his eyes, but he knew that once the monsters attacked, he would have little chance of surviving. The one directly behind him darted in, and as he twirled around, the other two closed in. Nearly blind, he thrust upwards in front of him quickly, the slick resistance telling him he had hit flesh. A wrenching scream that came a second after confirmed it. Something sharp lodged in his shoulder before he could turn around to face his last two adversaries, and he only briefly caught a glimpse of some thorn stuck in his back as he pivoted on one foot. He took most of the weight of the blade in his right arm, and shifted his body and guard accordingly. Both of the dust-demons had come in close enough that Hiiro could still see them, no matter the pain of the toxic gases they emitted. One long stroke was enough to cut a deep enough score across their stomachs that they backed away, and Hiiro stalked after them, each step becoming more painful. Two more wild, extremely un-perfect-soldierish slashes were enough to take care of them. As they swirled into nothingness, the gas and dust disappeared, and Hiiro Yuy could take it no more, collapsing into heap, curled in a fetal position around the sword that had served him well.

On the other side of the unused warehouse, Rei faced a different sort of creature, a good deal like something she had faced in her younger days, fighting with Usagi and the rest, not as a single warrior. It was jelly like, and flowed in puddles, attaining a faintly human state only briefly, and solidifying to strike a blow, sinking just as quickly out of the way of her punches or kicks, and multiplying when she did manage to destroy it. There had been quite a few, at least thirty, but almost half had succumbed to fire. But she didn't have enough power left for any large scale torching attacks like the ones that had destroyed the first. Her arrows were useless, as were the piercing rings of the burning mandala. But her mind drifted back to another attack form, one she hadn't used in years. Since her early teens, Rei had learned more about the nature of the firebird. Her power had to call up a transient spirit from another world, to inhabit the substance of her fire, only after fighting, could it return to its home. She hated to tear away, enslave the souls of the magnificent phoenixes from some distant universe, but today, it seemed she had no other choice. As soon as the words left her mouth, a creature like nothing she had seen appeared before her, a firebird more three times as large as any other she had called, and as it lifted off to face her foes, she could see intelligence in its eyes. It was truly gorgeous, flaming plumage ample and bright, and it destroyed each of the amorphous creatures in three or four fiery breaths. When the final was gone, it looked directly at Rei, before burning up and disappearing. She was still awed and confused, and could only and offer a prayer to the wind it had left on.

Still, with the phoenix on her mind, Rei turned the corner to the next building, and saw Hiiro's prone form, and sprinted as fast as she could. She kneeled next to him and paused briefly before removing the sword from under his arms, and taking it back into herself. She noticed the thorny sting in his back, and pulled it out without hesitation, then tearing her clothing to wrap around the wound. He opened his eyes, as she leaned over his body and reached for her arm.

"You're ok."

"Yeah, I'm alright, Hiiro."

"What was that stuff? It was like dust, and nerve gas or something."

"Hiiro, that was... that was just magic."

"Oh. Rei?"

"Yes?"

"I'm happy you're alright." He reached up to touch her cheek, when they heard a cackle from behind them. They both looked, and Rei saw what she hated to see. The male exuded lovely evil, dressed all in black. His long black hair was unadorned, but accented his white-blue eyes. It was by the amulets he wore on his neck that Rei identified him. The master of the demons had finally arrived


	9. New Arrivals

Disclaimer: This stuff still doesn't belong to me. However, I finally have something original in this plot. Yes. Demantoid is mine. 

Rei turned away from Hiiro's shoulder to face the adversary, who saw her and smiled, but didn't yet step any closer much to the relief of both Rei and Hiiro but also Usagi and Duo who had just stepped out of the cockpit of Deathscythe Hell, about 20 meters away from the other figures on the wasted terrain. The demon-master didn't seem to notice them as he chuckled after his initial pause and began to walk towards the other pair, still frozen in their same positions.

"So you are the marschild who escaped my firebombs, are you? Well, that shall soon be a mistake fixed."

He grinned, nearly charismatically, as he brought his hand up. Usagi could tell what was coming. She had seen both of them fighting and knew neither had any strength left to resist or survive what this man could do to them. At the same time, she knew she could do nothing for Rei, or Hiiro who would die in a fight that wasn't even his own. Suddenly, a flash of gold and orange seemed to appear in her mind and Duo thought he heard a wolf howl as three words slipped through the blonde's clenched teeth.

"Moon Tiara Magic..."

A brilliant silver disk cut the air between her and her target in milliseconds and the man's scream could barely be heard over Usagi's as the front of his hand was shorn neatly off. He turned his now terrifying grimace towards the pair near the gundam where Duo was poised to drag Usagi back into the protection of the mecha's armor.

"A crystal carrier. Of course the martian would bring her. Oh, well. Remember, moonchild, we are far from the lunar plains and such a wound is nothing but an annoyance to Demantoid." Even though his words were brave, his eyes remained wide in pain even as his form whispered out of the scene.

Rei was torn between staying with the wounded Hiiro and running to her victorious but still vulnerable princess, but her dilemma was soon resolved as Hiiro stood, somewhat weakly, sword in hand and Usagi came running over, crying in a combination of excitement aand panic.

"Oh, Rei! Did you see that?"

"Usagi...how did you do it?"

"I...well, I just don't know. It just seemed to come to me. But Rei, it was different..."

Rei's mind flashed back to that moment.Yeah,the spinning disk had been of sharp metal, not the glowing energy slice it used to be; it had cut the flesh of Usagi's opponent rather than reducing him to moondust,as it was once wont to do. And what had that thing he said, the part about the lunar plains meant? Duo came jogging up just as Hiiro collapsed to the ground again. Rei immediately went to her knees, as she was too late to catch him and checked his pulse and temperature. Her fingers went back to the wound on his back and her eyes went wide in worry and horror. She stood up with the same look of terrified shock on her face.

"What's wrong with him?" Surprisingly, Shinigami's expression nearly matched Rei's. He had never seen Hiiro like this before.

"Once of those youma, those demons...It poisoned him."

Meanwhile...somewhere in the same city

Two figures, both tall, but one substantially taller than the other, androgynous in their hooded cloaks got to their feet. An explosion had brought them to their knees, but when they had found that they were assuredly not in the same place, or even the same dimension as they had been just a second ago, they had almost fainted again in surprise. Both held themselves tall and proudly, and their overgarments were made of rich fabrics and silver trim. A small sob escaped from one to match the howl of the dire wolf, a creature so tall its shoulder came nearly as high as that of shorter figure's, that accompanied them. The taller figure put a comforting hand on the arm of the other.

"It's okay, Mina. There was nothing you could do. None of us expected it, and you couldn't have protected her from that blast."

The crying one, called Mina, suddenly through back her hood, revealing a pretty face with deep set blue eyes, framed with long blonde hair.

"Did you feel that? She's here. It must be her. Our princess is here."

(END CHAPTER)

A/N: Sorry again for the delay. Thanks for all the reviews. I've finally made my decision. Yes, the other senshi will be in this fic, but there won't be pilot/senshi romance (other than what I've already set my course off on) So get ready, the next chapters won't be quite so Rei centered, but it's still mainly her story. I will (hopefully) involve some more magical theory in this piece (because I love doing it). I apoogize for the shortness, but my space key isn't working properly. Also, I might for once hold true to my promise of updating more quickly: I now have a better idea of what I'm going to do with the next set of chapters. Thanks again, and happy holidays.


	10. In the nick of time

Disclaimer: I'm too bored to actually think up anything today. Suffice to say, I don't own these..things...yeah...whatever. 

"Should I call a doctor? Maybe there's an antidote." At this point, even the equanimous pilot was sounding a little bit panicked.

Rei put a hand up over her eyes, and gave a painful sigh before responding.

"It's no use. It's magic, this poison. There's...nothing we can do. It's hopeless."

"You're sure? Nothing? None of your magic?"

Duo noticed Rei looked carefully at Usagi for an almost imperceptible moment before shaking her head, one hand still held to her face to hide her grief.

"Then we should at least bring him inside."

It did end up taking both Rei and Duo to carry Hiiro's limp and fevered form to what served as his bedroom, for the fighter's wiry form carried surprising weight. Once they had him arranged comfortably, Serena nudged Duo, and they moved out the doorway to a spot somewhere not far down the hall.

"I've never seen her grieve like that. She just doesn't accept things like that. It's not normal."

"Hiiro's not like this either. You're sure, then, there isn't anything to be done."

"You really do care about him, don't you?"

"Don't try answering my question with another. No one can avoid death."

"Once there was time, when I think, I think I could. But I'm sure, I can't do it anymore."

"Sure?"

"Completely sure. I just don't have the power anymore. Without my guardians, there's no chance."

"Well, I tried."

"I'm sorry, Duo."

"I understand."

Rei knelt next to the bed, and lay her head next to his.

"Hiiro, maybe you can hear me, but maybe you can't. I never meant for this to happen. It. . .it should've been me, and, oh, Hiiro, if I were stronger, this never would've happened. I should've been able to defeat all of the demons myself. If I were stronger. . .if I were stronger, Usagi would be able to heal you. But I would give all my strength...just to see that icy glare one more time...just open your eyes, Hiiro, please."

The stirring in Hiiro's body was almost imperceptible, but that, combined with that all too familiar stirring in her own ESP was enough to bring Rei to her feet. Hiiro's eyes flew open, more startlingly sharp than Rei had even remembered. He gestured towards the door, and before Rei had time to start running, Usagi's scream was heard as she raced down the hall, passing the doorway, quickly followed by a flying creature, whose wingspan only barely fit into the dimensions, of the 4ft wide space. Rei shot out quickly after them, nearly running into Duo who was hot on the chase, but managed to maneuver herself in front of him. Usagi screamed her name, and Rei was motivated to an extra spurt of speed, and ended with a flight-like leap which brought her down on top of Usagi's pursuer. She had it by the neck, but lost her grip, when she was startled by the morphing of long, sharp- edged black feathers into short, but still sharp, metallic scales. It took advantage of her moment of weakness, and as its taloned legs transformed into hands with dangerous looking nails, it turned her over and grabbed her arms. Rei shrieked as its curved beak turned into a mouth filled with blades. it wasted no time before sinking it's foot-long teeth into Rei's shoulder. Everyone in the room screamed: Rei who grabbed her shoulder as the shapeshifter pulled it's teeth out for the killing blow, Usagi who had stopped dead in her tracks and turned to look when Rei had tackled the demon, Duo who had, like Usagi, stopped short at Rei's sudden predatorial action, and Hiiro who had somehow managed to stagger to the door. Both men acted, Hiiro charging with his sword, giving a nearly deadly hit after Duo's bullet hit the creature in the head. Aggravated, it rose, torn between its two attackers. It lunged forward, but before either could tell which way it was heading, a stream of ice hit it, enveloping the thing in a hard shell.

All eyes turned toward two figures, newly arrived. Both wore utilitarian, and somewhat futuristic uniforms, collared shirts and slacks, one in blue, and one in burgundy. One carried an alien-looking pistol at the waist, and the other, a metallic pack slung over the shoulder. Both had mirrored visors covering their eyes, the one dressed in blue with her hand outstretched, obviously having launched the attack that had saved Rei's life.

"Ami?" Usagi's whisper could hardly be heard.

"Amy, Serenity, Amy." But still, the girl dressed in blue leaned forward eagerly to recieve the blonde's embrace. After a few seconds, Usagi turned to the other woman, hesitating.

"You may still call me Setsuna, Serenity." The woman, flung back her long green hair, and she too hugged the girl. The three were brought back to reality by a harsh scream coming from Rei's direction, where Hiiro was leaning over her, having barely been able to stumble to her side.

Both of the newly arrived came briskly to Rei, and while their eyes were wide in worry, they didn't seem panicked. Setsuna reached in Amy's pack and removed a silvered wand, with a crescent shape at the end, handing it to Usagi."

"Serenity, I think this might be useful."

"Ami...Amy...I don't know."

"With me and Pluto here, I think it'll work."

"Alright, Mercury, Pluto, "and with a nod to her fellow senshi, she gave it her best, "moon healing activation. . . !"

An incredible light blasted the length of the hallway, Rei's spasms of pain ceased, and Hiiro passed out on top of her as the poison was burned from his body. Rei quickly recovered and maneuvered herself into a sitting position, with Hiiro supportedagainst her body. Both Amy and Setsuna grinned.

"Greetings, Raye."

"It's Rei, Mercury."

They exchanged smiles, while Duo nearly exploded. "What's the difference!"

The four reunited senshi merely smiled at each other knowingly.

A/N: Well, we have our romance, action, and drama. I liked this chapter. Not to mention it's long, for me, anyways. Life is good. And UK beat IU,

Thanks for all the reviews. I'll have time to write some more over break, but at least bthis time I wasn't too late. I will have more explanations on the entire thing next time, but the entire thing is about multiple dimensions and plains. And btw, the dire wolf is an extrememly large wolf which existed in prehistoric Ireland. ( I think...)


	11. Explanations

Disclaimer: Someday I'll own something. Just not today. 

The room was not a particularly large one, but it was the only one large enough for the six of them that hadn't been destroyed during any of the attacks. They all sat on the hard concrete floors, exhausted, while their body heat warmed the frigid space.

"We'll start with the obvious. All four of us have shifted dimensions. We're refugees."

"But from what?"

"Demantoid."

"So he sent us here?"

"Yes. We were able to pick up an audio on your encounter, although we couldn't make it there in time."

"Then, what about that part about the lunar plains?"

"This might take awhile. See, there are infinite numbers of dimensions, which cluster and drift around certain clusters, again, of plains, which well, sort of, define our dimensions. There are about ten plains here in our cluster, and hundreds of dimensions. You might be able to guess that our plains are basically what our planets are based on. Lunar, Martian, Mercurian, Plutonic, Abyssal, etc. Our powers wax and wane as our dimension drifts. So what Demantoid said meant that this dimension is rather far from the lunar plains, and most likely farther than your old dimension was, so your power will feel low, and your attacks probably won't look or feel the same."

"What about our old dimension?" Usagi spoke low, as a tear rolled down her face.

"Your old dimension is probably ash, now. Ours certainly was."

"Wait, how did you get here? Because, I thought it was the explosion that brought us."

"Demantoid and whatever group is backing him have been systematically destroying dimensions, centering attacks on the planar avatars, us. Fortunately for us, many of their bombs have been faulty, and as a side effect, have created interdimensional wormholes, you could say. Since most of the bombs are set off near us, there are small chances that an occasional avatar might fall through. We heard Demantoid say that he set a fire bomb off in your world. Well, as your power is fire, you were probably guided through. Pluto and I were not with the rest, we managed to survive, but the entire living world was dead. We were able to discover the wormhole, and a lot more about the dimensional systems that we hadn't known before. Then, we jumped through and found ourselves here."

"Wait, how could you pick up our conversations remotely, anyways?" This time, it was Hiiro who interjected from his corner.

"Dozens of shotgun microphones. We had them trained to focus, alert us, and record when they picked up on an avatar's voice or Demantoid's. It's how we eventually found you." However, Rei noticed, Amy gave Hiiro a strange look, which she had done several times throughout the day.

Now, it was Duo's turn to speak, "Ok, why are you all coming to our dimension? And do we have er... you know, people like you from our dimension?"

"The bombs are keyed to the standard build of dimensions for this planar cluster. However, as we've discovered, this is a rogue dimension, from some other cluster. Of course, it's been modified to fit a little better with this cluster since it joined, but Demantoid can't get a lock on it enough to create a bomb, and all the wormholes seem to lead here because of energy release, it's virtually one of the only dimensions left in this cluster. Or perhaps it's just fate. Obviously, your avatars will be based on some other planes than these, but what, who, are where they are, I couldn't tell you."

"I see."

"So Demantoid is attacking us here to try to get rid of us, right?" Usagi interjected back into the conversation, sounding a bit anxious.

"Yes, he's hoping that not many more of us will escape to here. But mostly he's stalling for enough time to map this dimension and create a bomb that will destroy this one as well."

"Can we stop him, in time?"

"Only if we find more of us. One from each plane, if fate is kind."

"Then what?"

"We search him out and destroy him."

sub-chapter>focus>>the enemy

At some point in the history, the beaten, broken remnants of groups that once held views of world and galactic domination, which were stopped by a princess of the moon, and her friends of course, were drawn together from their separate dimensions by one man, who held similar schemes in his damaged mind, and thought to bring together the bits and pieces of so many forces, would be infinitely easier than actually to create an army of his own. Once all were present, they were all in agreement, in union they had a chance for revenge. Revenge only for their broken hopes, for all those who had gone directly against the defenders of the chosen dimension had come to complete annhilation or conversion.

They called themselves the neo-negaverse, which meant nothing in their actual lives or beings. It was simply a stylization, an imitation. They chose names like those of their namesake dominion, and dressed like them.

At one point, they made a final decision. It would be far simpler to destroy any life in the dimensions of this cluster, and to seed a civilization of their own,completely under their control, than to try and win over its current inhabitants. So one man was chosen for the job, the man who had summoned them, the only one with a true grasp on dimensionary theory. But one man without enough true ingenuity or patience. Demantoid.

Aforesaid man without patience sat in his quarters, reclining in an old, dirty, uncomfortable chair and tried to think himself logically out of his fury, but rage had taken hold. Before he could stop himself, he had torn most of his surroundings to pieces. No matter, they would be replaced, and with his excess emotion released he could get to really planning.

"It's those damn bombs. No matter what I do, more seem to escape. I have to destroy them before many more can join them. But nothing I send seems to work. I've tried strength, elusiveness, numbers. I even sent our only shapeshifter. . .all killed.

"Perhaps, afterall, I need a different approach. Yes, I think so. A new type of demon."

He grinned, laughing lowly to himself. He pointed his finger to the empty space in front of him. A light-emitting stream of energy flowed from the tip of his finger. It slowly took shape, forming ethereal lines, that eventually came to resemble a human. A little more work, and the lithe figure, long hair, and well-cut features were recognizable. He was contentfor the time being, and gazed at the blueprint of the fire goddess.

"An annoying pest. But you and your friends shall not bother me much longer, little girl."

A/N: Alright. Not much action, but a little bit of theory and explanation. A bit short as well, but there have been shorter. And rather good time, I should say.

Oh, and the entire name thing was just to emnphasize the different dimensions. You know, they're different but the same. Anyways. Thanks for the reviews. May your wit ever be sharp. Fira Khushrenada


	12. Happiness

Disclaimer: Don't own, never have, never will. 

Rei's eyes opened gradually from her deep, healing induced sleep as she awoke from the sensation of pressure at the far end of the bed she slept on. She blinked twice and shook her head to clear the fuzziness from her head, pushing herself into a more upright position against the cushions, starting a little when she saw who sat at her feet.

"Oh, Hiiro. How are you feeling?"

"Fine, you?"

"Better than ever."

They sat for a while, fidgeting mildly in the uncomfortable silence. Suddenly, they both moved to speak.

"Hiiro, is there something you want to say?"

"Rei. I need to talk to you."

They both coughed briefly in nervous embarrassment.

"Alright, Hiiro, shoot." (A/N: Actually, telling Hiiro this probably isn't a good idea.)

"I heard you, talking to me, when I was," he turned his face away in shame as he said the word, "poisoned. And mostly, I wanted to tell you, that no matter what happens, if I get hurt, or Duo, or the others, it's not your fault. I've made choices throughout my life, so have all of us. To put ourselves in danger, knowing that our next mission may be our last. It's part of who we are. So, Rei, I accept this mission, and I won't rest until this enemy of yours, that man, Demantoid, I won't rest until he's gone."

"Hiiro."

"Yes?"

"I don't think I've ever heard you speak so many words at one time before."

Her smile, wry as it was, lit his soul, and he finally found the power to smile back.

"And I've never heard you joke before. Rei, I don't what it is, but somehow, you're changing me. I've never been so confused, or so moved to speak. I act, then feel like someone else. Before you came here and nearly torched my hand right off my wrist, I had no room in my mind or heart for anything but work, espionage, aim, efficiency. But now I think, I think about you."

Now, Rei's smile was full and completely genuine.

"Oh, Hiiro." She literally threw herself at him(to hell with the damn shoulder injury!), so that they both fell off the bed as they encased themselves in each others' arms.

"Sorry," she whispered into his ear, then, "I like you too, Hiiro." And for a moment, the careworn edges and lines of pain and stress melted away from her face, and she looked like the free and independent 14 year- old she had been when this whole moon princess adventure had begun.

Hiiro nestled his face in those long black locks and sighed in contentment. Here he was, in a completely alien situation, a new man, almost. He didn't understand it, no, but he didn't need to. All he cared about was that almost painful bubbling deep at the bottom of his throat, and even deeper his soul. For once in his life, Hiiro Yuy finally knew what it was like to be happy.

Finally though, he awoke from his reverie. There was something else that he had wanted to talk about.

"Rei, there's something else, too."

Suddenly her entire posture, demeanor changed. Every muscle tensed in anticipation and her look went from soft to feral in an eyeblink.

"Not now Hiiro, something's wrong."

He vaulted off the ground even before she was on her feet, and offered her a hand up, the force of it propelling her almost entirely to the door. He soon followed her, and they were off, for better or worse.

* * *

"The thing is Serenity, that there must be some working of fate at hand, because for one, that all of are still alive, there's been no duplication, and the only survivors of these neo-negaverse attacks have been avatars." 

"Senshi."

"Whatever. In any case, this just doesn't seem like an accident."

That was the last thing either Mercury or Pluto said before Usagi screamed.

"Oh, goodness, Rei, you scared me, don't do that again!" But the seeming senshi of fire didn't move, her face still stoic, but her body positioned to attack.

"Rei, what's the deal?"

"Stop playing around, R-rei. This isn't l-like you." Usagi whimpered.

But the black haired woman didn't speak before springing into action. She immediately went for the moon princess, but both Amy and Setsuna leaped to protect her. She did manage to land a rather painful looking right hook on the frightened girl's face before the two others pulled her back, arms pinned behind her back. Their prisoner's head drooped, before she lashed out suddenly, freeing herself from their hands, and launching herself towards Usagi once again. "Pluto, what's going on?"

"I don't know. Maybe I was wrong, this is some Mars from some other dimension."

"Should we destroy her? It would seem wrong, if this really is Raye."

"At the moment, it doesn't seem as if we'll have a choice.."

A/N: ok, that's a pretty sucky ending, but class ends in four minutes, and if I don't post this now, it might be ever longer. Sorry for the long wait, I'll answer more questions in the next chapter.Ah. I love fluff.. Fira Khushrenada.


	13. Doppelganger

Disclaimer: Alright. You know, I can't believe I'm still writing fanfictions about shows I don't even like anymore. Such as GW and SM, which by the way.I don't own P: 

"Rei, what's gotten into you?"

The nearly rabid warrior was still not in the mood for speech yet, and truly Pluto was the only one who was capable of words. Amy was completely speechless, and Usagi, well, Usagi's panicked screams racked the room, and rendered Usagi herself pretty much helpless. Thankfully, Rei's gun had flown off somewhere as a result of one of Ami's perfectly timed, if not devastatingly powerful kicks. The rest of the events followed a pattern. Pluto guarding Usagi, while Ami tried to incapacitate the attacker, who would break through both women's attempts and nearly deliver a fatal blow before being dragged back where the sequence would start again.

But inevitable, they were all getting tired. The movements slowed and pauses of heavy breathing occurred occasionally as the fighting lapse. Pluto attempted to get something out of their berserk friend once again.

"Mars! What the hell is wrong with you!"

Still no answer. Neither of the two wanted to do anything that would seriously injure her, but their attempts to simply restrain her had been essentially useless. Unless someone did something, or they got some serious reinforcement, this whole event would end badly, for someone at least.

* * *

Meanwhile, the real Rei, accompanied by her perfect soldier, was exploring the hallways, searching desperately for the source of the screams that they could now clearly hear. "Good god, Hiiro, why did you build this place like a labyrinth?"

"Easier to catch intruders."

"How is being lost helping you catch intruders?"

"We're not lost."

Rei screamed in frustration.

Suddenly, Hiiro caught her arm.

"Wait. This way."

Rei was willing to be dragged, but still rather puzzled.

"Hiiro, where are you going?"

"I can feel something in my mind, like fear, panic. It's this way.

She was at first skeptical, but then remembered she was certainly in no position to reject notions of extrasensory perceptions. They were about as likely to find Usagi in this direction than any other. And Hiiro proved to be correct, by coincidence if nothing else, Rei mused as Usagi's telltale screams became louder and louder, a bad violin concerto, accompanied by the percussion of the signature bangs and impacts of a fight. For the last stretch, Rei dodged in front of Hiiro, picking up the pace and quickly turning into the last room at the corridor. She assessed, and oversimplified, the delicate situation, and landed an elbow in the spine of Usagi's attacker, knocking the woman to the floor. However, the figure, now obviously a doppelganger, retaliated quickly and violently, flipping Rei over to the floor herself, and confronting her with, well, herself. A strange prospect for anyone to face. Fortunately, for Rei there was no moral dilemma or paradox to puzzle over. This was an imposter, no one important, and her job was to destroy anyone who threatened Usagi. This made recovery from her initial shock expedient, and she threw her whole body into a roll, which dislodged her opponent, and set both of them up in standing positions. Rei knew that she had about as much strength and speed as her build would allow for, which wasn't all that great, but in an appropriate ration. This creature couldn't be built much stronger, and besides, Rei was fresh, while she knew it had been battling for quite some time. While it charged her, she quickly maneuvered around its back, and met it with a volley of kicks when it spun around. She thought she was still getting in before it had time to recover, but she was proved wrong as the thing grabbed her leg, throwing her to the other side of the room where she managed to recover enough to utilize her energy to rebound back within striking distance. She knew she wanted her next move to test the thing's capability for magic, and if it was zero, hopefully destroy it for good. She darted up close, without any hint of any sensible move coming up. Somehow, she managed to lightly place her hand on its stomach, and it only managed a few puzzled hits on her highly unguarded body before drowning in a deluge of fire. In a few moments, nothing was left but the nasty flakes that all those monsters had eventually turned to.

Rei sighed, taking Hiiro's outstretched hand. She understood why she hadn't had assistance. In such close proximity, and dressed so similarly. it would've been easy to attack the wrong one. The copy had been a good one.

Finally, Amy broke the silence, wryly, "I guess that answers which one was real. Nothing human burns that fast, even in Mars' flame. And real flesh smells a lot worse too."

* * *

Demantoid pounded on the wall in temporary fury, soon recovering, and smoothing back his dark hair, hoping no one had seen his loss of control. Unfortunately, a smooth, lyrical voice from behind him proved differently

"You know what you did wrong, don't you?"

"Shut up, Agate"

"If you build something off a model, you can't hope to make the copy better than the original. And because of your choice of models, yours turned out rather a failure."

"What was wrong with my choice of models? I wanted confusion. The firemaid was the strongest threat I could see at the time."

"You could have sent some other avatar, or senshi, or whatever they call themselves - you're well enough acquainted with the planes, and they might've been even more confused if that was the only one they knew. Mars' is not the strongest, or the fastest. You couldn't endow your creation with the same power as hers. Her build isn't for dark magic, but neither could you use pure magic. It was a bad choice, my friend, a bad choice."

A/N: Ok. So my ending was a little weird, but at least it didn't end in the middle of a chapter. I tried not to be too confusing, but if you didn't understand, the outline that Demantoid was creating in some previous chapter, eventually became the demon that looked like Rei, who then attacked, Rei comes to the rescue again. but I'll foreshadow a little R/H angst here, because, really, we couldn't let them be too happy, now could we?

more specifically, I guess I'm sorry I didn't make the plot run a little deeper, I've just been working on one or two chapter surface plots for awhile, and its just habit. I will get some more direction soon, I promise. At least by chapter 16 or 17, I hope. Also Mina can't really appear for quite awhile due to certain unknown reasons (well, unknown to you at least, although you might guess) but until all the senshi show up, they won't have much action, and I'm just better at writing Rei.I've never really thought about the other characters enough to give them any 3dness. (er.I guess the correct term is three-dimensionality?) anyways.ja! Fira X. Khushrenada.


	14. Magic

Disclaimer: All members and songs of Quasar Quasar belong to me (which has nothing to do with this chapter, or the story in general) but nothing of Sailor Moon or Gundam Wing do. So er. that means I don't own them.and they aren't mine and etc. you get the picture. 

Quatre was not surprised when the door to his office clicked open without a knock, but the identity of the visitor surely did. The tall green- haired woman with her blue-haired companion had shown up only a few days ago while he, Trowa, and Wufei had all been out. When he returned, Duo and Hiiro had all but accepted the two newcomers, and Rei and Usagi insisted they were friends. As he thought about it, he couldn't think of a real reason letting all of these woman stay with them was beneficial, but as of yet no one had complained except Wufei, and Wufei always complained. Now in residence, her maroon eyes locked into his blue ones immediately as she sat down.

"Well, Setsuna? What brings you here?"

"Who are you?"

"I'm a soldier, and a politician, and I'm afraid that's all I can tell you."

"That's not what I meant. The five of you boys, are not like any other in this world that Mercury and I have come into contact with. Similar to those we have known in our own worlds, but different."

"That I can't tell you, not because of any wish for you not to know, but simply because I have no idea what you're talking about." Quatre was simple, and curt, without being rude.

"I didn't think so, but it was worth a try." Setsuna smiled mildly, more amusement crossing her face briefly than anything else, "But I will keep my eyes on you five."

And with that, she left the room.

* * *

Rei closed her eyes in a focusing exercise, but both the presence of the young soldier next to her and what they were trying to do stirred her mind out of its normally well-ordered patterns. Hiiro had come to her, and she was glad, because she had almost forgotten how Hiiro had seemingly absorbed the sword right into his body, just as she or another of the senshi might have done. Yet she was also perplexed at what to do. Hiiro obviously had some inexplicable potential for magic. But what to do? Hiiro had asked her to teach him, which brought her to where she was now, a dark, secluded hallway with no light but her own fire.

It was going fairly well. Hiiro was used to concentration, and she could nearly feel his brainwaves clicking into well-worn grooves of his psyche. His perfect focus helped calm her own mind and she too slipped into a deep phase of meditation. Without leaving this comforting sphere, she instructed Hiiro in something she barely understood herself.

"In this state you can look to yourself, and sense something inside of you. Something different from where you draw your strength or decisions, deeper, but still reachable."

"What should I expect?"

"I don't know. In my own world, this power inside could manifest itself in different ways, to attack, to heal, it even changed our bodies to make us faster, stronger. I don't know what the power may do for you."

Hiiro gave up and did as he was told, trying to look inside, into his mind, for something flowing or burning as he imagined. Nothing. Next he tried feeling, something perhaps warmer, or thicker, or solid? Still nothing. But a perfect soldier never quits. A perfect soldier must continue. So then he tried simply knowing. Not by any reason or common sense, by science or nature, but just plain instinct. And just as Rei had told him, there it was. More beautiful than anything else in his life had ever been. It was pure, so pure, shimmering in his knowledge, and a small smile tipped his pale lips. Rei seemed to know automatically that he had found what they were looking for, having somehow accompanied him in silence in his search. She cupped his hands in hers, transferring senses directly to him now. He could feel, nearly touch her power flowing out into her own hands, in the form of warm flames licking both her fingers and his, but not harming either. Just as she had done he opened his mind, letting the power emerge from the spirit into the realms of body and flesh, collecting and solidifying between his palms. At that point, their powers seemed to mix, and the sensation was irresistible. She was as him as he was her, retaining their individualities, sharing nothing but the moment. Hiiro reveled in the feeling that was too soon over. The image of Rei in his mind blinked her eyes open, looking at their clasped hands, with dismay, shock and horror. His eyes remained shut, confused by what was going on. He felt her magic's warmth recede, and even the warmth of her hands was gone a second later. She backed away, her devastated expression clear in his mind.

"Not again," he heard her say, sobs threatening to choke her voice, "not again."

She broke into a run, and Hiiro, now alone in complete darkness, trembled. Had he done something wrong? The world had been everything, and now it was nothing. Confused and exhausted, he fell to the ground, a perfect red rose enclosed in his fingers.

A/N: ooooooh..what does it all mean? Ok, so it turned out a little more metaphysical than I meant it too, but that's ok. It actually turned out better than I thought. I'm soooo sorry it's taken this long, but I've been really busy, and really uninspired. I haven't given up yet!

I strongly advise you to remember one thing. I am Rei/Hiiro, no matter what. So if you think you hate me, or if you think you love me, just remember those words.

To tell the truth, I know where I'm going in general, but my next few chapters are just starting to clarify, so it still might be a little while, thought not quite as long.

Firako Khushrenada


	15. Action

Disclaimer: I could write a song about all the things I don't own, but I won't because, it would be too long.

Rei ran until she was breathless, which, one could imagine, was a long way away from the scene from which she had heartbrokenly wrenched herself away. The moment had been perfect – among all the violence, blood, confusion, Rei had finally found what she had looking for her entire life. Hiiro was everything Rei had once hoped to be: strong, silent, quick, passionate, but always in control; then there had to be that complication. Back, back in the darkness, she had opened her eyes happily, eager to see the physical manifestation, at least, of the power that lay deepest in his soul. To find that symbol that she had long resented, resented because it made Mamoru the one man in the world that she could absolutely not have, to see that beautiful flower clasped between Hiiro's unsuspecting fingers, that was unbearable.

Rei's broken heart was shattered like a pane of glass by Usagi's shrill scream. Ever mindful of her duties, Rei shook the lethargy and despair out of her limbs, and set out at a run for the surface, her best chance to find Usagi and the other senshi before it was too late. On the ground floor, she could hear the screams get louder, and perhaps by luck, found herself close enough that could even hear the sounds of a fight, and at that point, it was easy to pinpoint her princess's location.

As she entered the room, she found the attacker to be a creature that seemed to be an extraordinarily large human male, only dressed from the waist down. Rei gulped, as she summed up her opponent, over ten feet tall, he had huge muscles, but there was no intelligence in his eyes. She then looked to Mercury and Pluto, both recovering from being thrown against the wall, which now the creature was free to attack Usagi. In panic, Rei threw a hurried fireball, then running to intercept it. The magic merely distracted it, and before Rei even knew what was happening, she too felt a force against her stomach, followed by the impact of her back against the wall.

'Oh, god he's fast." She thought briefly before bringing herself back to her feet. Amy and Setsuna had already recovered and returned to aid their princess.

"Did your attacks work any better than mine?"

"No, I'm afraid not. I don't understand this thing, it can't be harmed by magic, and it's both strong and fast."

"Strong enough to throw us into walls, and fast enough for us not to be able to dodge."

"Let's try attacking all at once this time."

"Alright."

The three pulled themselves around to opposing sides of this almost untouchable opponent. Without a signal, they launched themselves at it, accelerating to their highest speeds, but it still wasn't enough, one by one, each was thrown back, smashing painfully into the next object in their path. This left the path to Usagi completely open. Beforehand, she had stopped screaming after the initial shock, but now as the monster/man approached her with the glint of death in its eyes, her shrieks started up again, louder and more insistent than earlier. Her three senshi rushed to get to her, but they each knew they would make it in time, seeing how they had all just finished sliding down the length of the wall. Suddenly, a figure flashed past all of them to the back of the room, and the other three women could tell his mission was to rescue Usagi from her plight. As Hiiro placed Usagi back down, nearer the doorway, with three warriors between her and the creature, Amy alone noticed the forlorn look in Rei's eyes which flashed there for less than a moment. The important thing now was to protect Serenity, as it always had been, and always would be. The five gathered near the doorway.

"Serenity, run, as fast as you can away from this place. You have a better chance, defending yourself from anything you meet outside this room, than you have in here."

Rei noticed a strength and determination straighten Usagi's spine as she asked, "Shouldn't I stay here, help you fight?"

"It's best not to risk you, princess. Go, please."

She nodded abruptly and set off at run, reminding Rei foolishly of the days gone by when a tardy school girl in a blue and white uniform used to run world record paces along the sidewalks of Tokyo, hoping not to anger her teacher too much.

As she left, the three senshi and Hiiro went at it again, hoping to stall, surprise or wear down the monster with constant attacks. As time wore on, each could feel deeper aches settle into their bones over which the pain of new wounds was piled. The lulls between the attacks began to get longer as it took longer and longer for the fighters to pull themselves off the ground. Rei noted, almost casually, that it wouldn't take much longer now until they couldn't get up at all, and hoped that by that time, Usagi would be far from here.

It was what seemed like had to be their last good round. A split-second after Rei, the last in the quick sequence of attacks, leapt to deal her blow, and as she was swept out of nowhere, a tall figure, clad in a dark green, seemed to fall from the ceiling, speed from where she pushed off adding to the acceleration due to gravity, making her total velocity incredible to behold. A second, somewhat smaller figure followed just behind her, in deep violet, and both scored devastation blows to the head of the evil thing. They quickly leapt away after they made contact, and on the ground, the three senshi could make out the shapes and faces of two very welcome comrades, in military uniforms the green of Jupiter, and the dark purple of Saturn. They paused only momentarily for smiles of greeting however. The creature's surprise and shock of actually being hit would not last long, and the humans meant to take advantage of it. Slowed by cloudy vision and a foggy head, it could only block 1 attack out of 2, and now that it was facing six warriors, it was quickly weakened.

"Moon Princess Halation!"

Rei, Amy, and Setsuna quickly turned to the doorway as they heard the familiar voice. Usagi stood there, face slightly tear-stained, but head held high and proud.

"I ran, but I found Jupiter and Saturn, and they gave me this scepter." She was smiling now, the presence of more senshi presenting her with almost full strength, certainly enough to function with. Rei almost cried at the return of Usagi's full smile, so magnetic that she couldn't help but smile back, as did everyone in the room. Another ordeal was finished.

sub-chapter: focus: Venus

Venus had shed the heavy black cloak, revealing a long yellow tunic-style dress, more comfortable in the bright sunshine. Her companion, deeper in depression than acknowledged by either, remained in the hot wool, hood drawn down. She sighed, stroking the head of her wolf, Artemis.

"I don't know. We've been here for awhile, but there's been no other sign other than the first two."

"Are you sure, Mina? Are you sure we can trust you instincts?"

"What else is there to trust, here?"

"Nothing. Nothing other than ourselves."

She stood up suddenly, too quickly, for the blood drained from her head and she stumbled, nearly fainting.

"There it is again, but stronger. I can almost see her. Oh, let's go, we have to go, now."

With that she drew her cloak back off and set out at a run, and her companion had no choice but to follow.

A/N: YAY! More characters! So…is Hiiro really some form of Endymion? If he is, what does this mean for him and Rei? And who is Mina's companion? hint, hint, hint

Wow! I updated really fast! amazing!


	16. Temper

Disclaimer: heh...sooo...not mine

A/N: I know I'm a horrible, horrible person, but once school starts up again, I might update more frequently.

Once the details had been worked over sufficiently, the animated chatter settled to a hum in the back of Rei's mind. Evidently, once Usagi had made it into the streets, she had, perhaps not so coincidentally ran into Lita and Tara. Strange names, certainly, and that 'L' so hard on her dwindling accent. At least, Lita was nearly a twin to the Makoto that Rei remembered, but Tara - that one was more like steel with a deceptive silk covering, than the vulnerable (occasionally, at least) Hotaru from her world. The strength they added to the team, along with the scepter they brought, had been enough to bring victory.

As the adrenaline faded from Rei's veins, so too did her high spirits, and she started to slip away, back into the shadows, when slim fingers gripped her arm. Her head snapped up, her eyes meeting those of her princess. A flash of understanding passed, and Rei snuck off unhindered.

The underground passages connected to the building must go on for miles, Rei thought absentmindedly. She herself had only used about 500 yards of them, herself, when she had been targeting Hiiro Yuy. She barely managed to choke down a noise that lay somewhere between a laugh and a sob before she slid down to the floor, leaning against the cool concrete wall. She knew now she couldn't kill Hiiro, not now. Even leaving duty and emotions behind, the man possessed strength, reflexes, and speed in the most deadly balance a human body could handle. And instead of improving, it seemed to Rei that her own skills were dwindling rather than growing. Her stamina had decreased, and her punches didn't carry nearly as much weight as they used to. Perhaps, now that more senshi were here, she didn't need the extra strength to protect her princess. . .

. . . and there was Hiiro here too, she thought bitterly.

"And I'm here."

Startled, and partly shocked, she drew in a long, sharp breath.

"Hiiro. . . I know I didn't say that out loud."

He merely grunted in reply.

"Don't. You heard what I was thinking."

"I know."

"What the hell? How can you hear my thoughts? And accept it so calmly?"

"It's happened before."

"WHAT? Goddammit. Hiiro, what ELSE have you been keeping from us?"

_Temper, Rei. . . _She gasped softly, putting a hand to her through as she noticed the small ache in her throat. It had been so long since she had screamed that way. But once, she remembered, once, that reaction had been so natural. To think of it, the last time she had such a vocalized tantrum was. . . before the accident. She had needed a cool head and a strong sense of patience. But now? Now, perhaps, along with her strength, that particular talent was gone. The smallest hint of a grin touched the corners of her mouth. She. . .could be **herself** now! Yet, back in the old world, she had always wished she could hold her fire. It often got in the way, and it would be free to now, once again. Again, reason interjected – she had caught herself this time. Even though her anger was back, living without it had taught her when it got out of control. Maybe things wouldn't turn out so bad after all . . .

As Rei's inner monologue drew to a conclusion, Hiiro began to get worried. She had been so strange, so loud, and then silent for the longest time. And now, there were no echo-less whispers to hint to him what she could be thinking. He began to reach out for her shoulder when she coughed gently.

"You - you said, this has happened before?"

As the darkness hid his face, he smiled briefly. No apology, just a succinct, level continuation of the conversation. He wouldn't want an apology anyway. Not from Rei.

"Once. Maybe twice. I always thought it was my imagination."

"Until now?"

"The world seems to have changed. If you can shoot fire, I thought, maybe I could read minds."

"Have you ever deliberately tried it?"

"No."

"Try reading my mind."

Un fortunately for Rei, she couldn't think of any specific thought for Hiiro; her mind drifted aimlessly, and she was still quite surprised, as both a chuckle and a pair of hands emerged from the abyss. Yet, as his lips met hers for the first time, only the smallest protest formed in her mind. _Usagi. . ._

Strong arms circled around her waist, and pulled their bodies tightly against each other. _Usagi? Who's Usagi?_

A/N: No, Rei is not in love with Usagi. . .I actually finished a chapter. w00t. Fira Khushrenada.


	17. Rejection

Disclaimer: If I owned SM/GW, I wouldn't write fanfics. I'm writing a fanfiction, so therefore I must not own SM/GW. See where simple logic can get you? Great, isn't it?

A/N: Dear god, I haven't written in ages, I'm really horrible, I know. I did update one story. Heh. Hehe.

A single figure crept along a wall, more out of habit than need. Breathlessly he was drawn to the flame, but it was not the helpless and fatal attraction of the moth. The flame marked where a lone woman was, where she was waiting for him. His caution was definitely not necessary – actually, she insisted on the secret meeting place, not him. However, he didn't completely resent her wish to keep their relationship, or whatever it was, from the others. Hiiro Yuy had never been one to flaunt his emotions, and he was sure Rei had her reasons.

There she stood, just as she always did, but this time, Hiiro could see something different, something completely wrong. Usually, her magnificent eyes were as brilliant as the flame she held effortlessly in her hand, and her gaze held enough heat to match a wildfire at its height, enough heat to burn straight through his skin, and deep into his soul. But not this morning. The violet orbs seemed to be looking inside Rei's head rather than any object of her surroundings, and their depths were as cold as Hiiro's own eyes, the ice-eyes from which his nickname came. Once within a couple yards, he overcame his habit and walked normally to stand beside her, touching her shoulder lightly. She spun quickly around to face him, meanwhile maneuvering her body out of the reach of his touch, but her eyes wouldn't meet his. Why wouldn't she look at him?

"Hiiro, this is it."

He merely grunted in reply.

"I mean it's over." She turned to leave, but his hand shot out to catch her wrist. She struggled briefly, but she knew his strength could easily overcome her.

"Rei," This time it was more of a growl than a grunt, "I don't care about your past. I am Hiiro Yuy, not Endymion."

"Hiiro, let me GO!"

"I can hear your thoughts right now, and I won't let it pass. I won't stand here and let you tell me I'll hurt you. You can't think that."

"Watch me, mindreader. I can think whatever I want. This time, I'm not going to be caught unawares when it happens. Men are all scum; I should've remembered my lesson." With that, she wrenched herself out of his grip while he momentarily loosened his hand, and disappeared into the darkness.

"Rei," his lips whispered without his command, but the sound merely dissipated into the abyss.

Today was the first time in days everyone had actually met together as a group, and for the first time, the females outnumbered the males. As a group, the boys had rarely gone into the deeper part of the city, except to meet with Treize, and the last of those meetings had been unfortunately interrupted. Now was really the first time their property had suffered severe damage, as most of the battles the boys had been involved in were far away from those makeshift headquarters. However, in this case, Quatre had decided to organize large groups to get all the materials required.

"Alright, Lita, Amy, and I will obtain parts for repair of internal systems; Hiiro, Rei, Usagi, and Duo will order the raw materials for structural repair, and –"

"Excuse me, sir," an abnormally late Amy interrupted as she arrived, "but Setsuna and I would like to do some research on these time-space anomalies. Therefore, if each group could take one of these instruments, it will pick up and record data on anything abnormal."

"That sounds fine. Anyways, you four remaining will be er…purchasing nutritionary items necessary for human sustenance."

"GROCERY SHOPPING! What a complete waste! Why am I going _grocery shopping_?"

Wufei showed a few hesitations. However, Duo applied some gentle verbal persuasion ("Ah, suck it!"), and the group was quickly on their way.

* * *

As Rei, and several other of the girls had suspected, the gundam pilots didn't exactly walk into a home improvement store. Of course, the boys had 'suppliers', contacts. Amy, in fact, was a bit suspicious herself.

"Mr. Winner…"

"You may call be Quatre, as I only know your first name, Amy."

"Well then, Quatre, why exactly are we coming along? It seems that nearly everything you're purchasing will be delivered later. No real use for us at all."

"To be on the safe side, I've pretty much planned for you girls to be staying with us indefinitely. I'm not quite sure how that happened, you understand. We agreed to have Rei and Usagi come, in return for Rei's aid in certain areas, and in return for Hiiro's life," Quatre snickered softly to himself, "Then, you and Setsuna came along, and Lita and Tara subsequently. It would seem awkward, I suppose, for lack of a better word, to turn any of you out. Magical girls – heh, there's not much protocol, or precedent. Well, I digress. In conclusion, it is foreseeable that the six of you could be expected to help out – that includes running errands. I'm just trying to show you where things are."

"But Quatre, why in the world would you trust us? I'm assuming that your security is fairly delicate, at the least. You've never met us; we have nothing that might recommend us to you."

"For one, you've never done anything remotely untrustworthy. More importantly perhaps, our security system is very sensitive. Not one you could fool. Also, the five of us will serve as our own security. We may be pretty young, but we have some experience – and we'll notice if something seems fishy."

"Interesting…" Quatre watched tentatively as her blue eyes lost focus and the blue-haired head turned to another direction.

"It seems I'm picking something up." Her tone was quite nonchalant, but when she took a quick look at a small device, her expression became worried.

"And it's not passive."

"Ah, and does that mean what I think it does?"

"It does."

Amy had always looked the most fragile out of the six girls, paler and more delicate than even Usagi. But when she and Lita took off running, he found himself hardly managing to keep up.

* * *

Rei's mood retained traces of the turbulent resentment from the encounter this morning, but then again, the sun was shining brightly for the first time in weeks, and Usagi looked happy, almost healthy. It certainly pleased her that Usagi had found a friend in Duo. 

'But she should be looking to Hiiro.' she thought, turning back to her own little drama. Even though she had finally pulled herself together enough to deal the first blow to her heart, she could not bring herself to shatter it – to tell her princess the truth. As if on command, her companion spoke up for the first time on their outing.

"Rei."

"No, Hiiro."

Hiiro's heart beat violently; he could feel it all the way up his throat and spine. Ice, he thought, ice was always a bad sign in Rei.

"At least, you could have talked to me about this. It is my life."

"Hiiro, I made my decision!"

Though her words were still harsh, the passion had again entered her voice. Rei may try to hide behind a wall of ice as he had often done, but her own internal flame would make short work of those seemingly strong battlements, just as it had done to his. He chuckled, or something close to that.

"You're so stubborn."

At Hiiro's knowing, condescending tone, every muscle in Rei's body tensed, and Hiiro was immediately ready for her to turn on him, grabbing her arms as she attacked and holding her there, making her look at him. Rei's fire had exploded completely, and the blazing of her violet eyes left Hiiro breathless and incapable of movement.

Perhaps he was the moth. He had just gotten burned, and he kept coming back. He would come back, Hiiro knew, until his wings turned completely to ashes. Yet, even without wings, he would struggle, and creep along the ground in search of that flame.

A high pitched scream charged the air as lightning rent the suddenly darkened sky in half. Rei spun quickly to aid her princess. Hiiro followed, but he did not notice the tears streaming from her eyes.

A/N: oh my. I updated. That's a surprise. Still not terribly long. But longer than I'm used to. No, there's no question of a Usagi/Duo romance. They're just friends. Remember that. Haha, and that's as close to a fanfic-shoppingtrip as you're ever going to get in this story.

Er…question. Should I use other pairings? It would give me a lot more fodder, and I'd probably manage longer chapters, minutely more frequently updates. I don't really have many ideas on those couples. Perhaps some Amy/Quatre, and I could foresee some Minako/Wufei in the far FAR future. Input?

As always, comments and suggestions are always welcome. Even negative ones.


	18. Found

Disclaimer: Meh. My gratitude is due to Naoko Takeuchi, and whoever, for character and setting development. 

A/N: In her world, Mina's real name is Sormena, though she is nicknamed Mina. Sorenna (Usagi, Serenity) was called Renna, but died when they were seven. The next heir was a relative, a younger girl, maybe 4 or 5 at the time called Diaen. Mina is now 19 and Diaen died in the explosion that took Mina and her companion to the Gundam world.

The pretty blond marched quickly down the crowded sidewalks, for someone who had no destination. The people gave her strange looks, as full length cloaks with hoods were not the average daily wear for most normal citizens.

"Mina, love, wait!"

"Oh, Prince Aendmon, I do not think you should be calling me that. Not at all. Not when she is here." Though her words held a killing touch, her tone was still bright and air as ever.

"Sormena, ever since we have been here you have been driving us aimlessly towards her, but you do not even know where she might be. And I have never once sensed her as you say you have. She is dead, Mina! When we got here, this search seemed like a distraction from the destruction of our lives, and this alien world. But it is time to be realistic. No matter what happens, we have to be able to survive."

"You do not understand! I betrayed her once by letting her die, twice by loving you, and thrice by letting her heir die. If there is some chance that I may be able to redeem my honor, I must!"  
"I could not her save her, I could not save Diaen, and I could not help loving you, either! Am I not as much at fault as you?"

"I was her sworn guardian, Aendmon, the leader of her protectors. Her life was my responsibility,"

"You were barely seven when she died. Almost too young to know or understand your duty, much less fulfill it."

Now they both stood still, facing each other as the crowds flowed around them as a river engulfs a boulder. The second figure shrugged off his hood, revealing a thick mop of straight black hair and entrancing sapphire eyes as he lifted hand to caress the curve of her chin with a single fingertip. He became confused though, as her eyes grew wider, then narrowed in loathing. When she ran past him into the street, the emotion behind the single word she screeched out made his heart ache. . .

"SORENNA!"

Demantoid knew he had been stupid. He should have done this earlier, confronted the martian and moonchild who had arrived first, killing them, and then killing each subsequent pair. However, his pride in his own creations had been his undoing. Now it would be more difficult, but there was no way they could stop him. He would not be defeated. He had waited first for those two, since they had been his first and most aggravating adversaries. The man with the blond girl had been easy to dispose of, since he had caught the pair of them off guard. Demantoid had simply grabbed the man's long hair and thrown him against a wall. The girl, his main target had been too stunned to fend off his attack, and he could feel the life draining from her body, as he tightened his grip around her neck. Still, he had seen another pair with them, the martian and a man who had proven himself an adversary in the past. He kept his eyes riveted to the corner they would shortly be turning in order know of any attack from either of them. Unfortunately for him, the attack came from the opposite direction.

Mina found it fairly easy to reach her princess. At the appearance, and subsequent violent actions of this strangely dressed man, most of the people fled, each trying to get as far away as possible. Even in her bulky cloak, she deftly wove her way through the crowd, praying that she would be in time. When she finally broke free from the masses, she could not find thoughts or words for magical actions, flinging herself at the man's back, sinking her teeth into his exposed neck, and trying to claw at his eyes from behind. Demantoid immediately lost attention to Usagi, and Aendmon, who had followed closely behind Sormena, to whom he had given the nickname 'Mina', took the opportunity to grab her away. A small distance away, he laid her gently on the ground, and prepared to join Mina's fight. However, he was stopped when he glanced at the girl, and immediately recognized her blonde tresses, arranged in an unmistakable hairstyle. He knelt slowly, almost not believing what he was seeing. Sorenna. She still resembled Mina closely. But now they could only pass for sisters, whereas when they had all been small, the two could have been twins. He had loved her then, and at first sight, he knew he loved her again. Then, he noticed her complete lack of movement, and his heart froze.

"Please, my Renna, please, you can not be dead. I can not take losing you again." A tear slipped past his manly defenses and landed on her perfect mouth. Without thought, he brought his own lips down upon hers, and as they touched, he could sense her whole body tense. Their tears mingled as they kissed, and each knew it was solely tears of joy.

Rei's concern had been solely for her princess, but when she turned the corner, her focus shifted to her enemy, who seemed now to be struggling with a strange girl latched on to his back. She too launched herself at him, but was thrown back, and hit the ground with considerable force. She swore and looked up. The lady who stood over her was gorgeous in the most sinister way possible, with multicolored feathers replacing both hair and clothing, but still revealing vast expanses of pale, blue-tinted skin. Her grin was frightening, but Rei wasn't truly scared until she realized that the woman's words entered her mind directly, and not through her ears. 'Why don't you stand up, little flame?'

Rei's anger was roused immediately, and attempted to kick the woman's feet out from under her. However, her neurons seemed resistant to firing, and no movement occurred at all. The only change that could be noticed at all was the growing sense of horror and panic emerging from Rei's eyes. As Hiiro entered the scene, he wondered only briefly why Rei wasn't moving; he quickly sensed the shield that was built around Rei's mind – so strong that her thoughts couldn't even reach her body. He knew that he would have to act fast to escape a similar shield. Hiiro couldn't know it would work, but he attempted to visualize an identical shield around the enemy's mind, and to his great surprise, one appeared. He then heard that sly voice in his mind, or perhaps it was only that he was in the enemy's mind. 'So, we have a little mind-mage, as well, do we? Lucky for me, you are new and unpracticed at the art. It will be a pleasure to destroy you.'  
At that very moment, Hiiro could feel intense amounts of energy building up beneath the shield he had constructed, quite capable of shattering his barrier. Yet his eyes only narrowed, and the ghost of a smirk crossed his face. He knew that there would be one kind of attack that the woman wouldn't be expecting.

Rei suddenly felt control over her body return to her, and immediately looked upwards, puzzled, only to see a brilliant violet fluid blossoming from where Hiiro's sword pierced the woman's neck to the hilt. Remembering their situation, Rei scrambled quickly to her feet, and both she and Hiiro shifted focus to Demantoid. Sensing that the blonde girl still holding valiantly to Demantoid's back was tiring, Rei immediately launched into a frontal attack. Her kick achieved its mark, but the man's dodge lessened the strength of the blow. She continued, though, never letting up, often alternating physical attacks with magical ones, just as frequently dodging attacks from her enemy. Before either side began showing much advantage, she noticed a figure fighting next to her. She took a closer look at the blonde's delicate features and recognized none other than her former comrade in arms.

"Minako?"

"Raia?"

Unfortunately, this moment of surprise marked Demantoid's chance to truly retaliate. His vertical jump was magnificent enough that when his legs and feet snapped forward, each girl took a substantial hit on the bottom of the chin, knocking them both to the ground.  
Meanwhile, Hiiro had been busy defeating several monsters himself. As soon as Demantoid had gotten the chance, the entire area teemed with such creatures; although Hiiro had made short work of many, vastly more still existed. Briefly, he had noticed others doing their own part: Duo had recovered quickly enough to make his mark, and Quatre, Amy, and Setsuna had also arrived at some point. When he saw Rei and the other girl lying prone on the concrete, Hiiro knew that he would have to attack Demantoid himself, to give them few seconds they would need to recover. He launched himself into the fastest run he could manage towards Demantoid's back hoping that he wouldn't notice the attack until it was too late. But when he neared his target, he merely heard a low chuckle, and felt a devastating force approaching, although he could not see anything.

'Magic..." he thought regretfully as he passed out and hit the ground with a thud.  
A few feet away, Rei had just stood up in time to see Hiiro's head violently hit the ground. Demantoid, still too busy relishing his small victory, did not even have time to notice the astounding speed at which Rei's leg came crashing into his head, or the intense heat of the flaming arrow she shoved into his chest. Of course, for a creature like Demantoid, such blows were paltry, but as he reached up to yank the fire bolt out of his body, a glowing golden loop surrounded his torso, effectively preventing all movement. At this point, Rei, as well as all the other present senshi, sensed a presence that was unmistakable. She turned her raven-haired head slowly around, to view her princess, and much to her surprise, her prince, each with a hand on the glowing silver orb, the Silver Imperium Crystal. As they simultaneously uttered the three simple words, a single tear dropped from Rei's face.

"Moon Crystal Power"

Perhaps without the elegance or intricacy of previous attacks, a single beam of light shot out to hit Demantoid straight between the eyes; within moments, he and all of his creations became moondust.

A pall of darkness seemed to have been lifted from the scene, and Rei, for the first time, noticed the presence of the others at the scene and remembered the two newcomers. Still standing close to Minako, she offered the blonde girl the first smile, tentatively offering her hand, when she felt a hug of breath-stopping intensity. She looked up awkwardly into the deep blue eyes of the one she knew as Mamoru.

"Raia, my sister, it has been a long time," he exclaimed before kissing her delicately on the cheek.

Rei returned the hug, still completely confused as to what the heck her prince was talking about, thinking only about what the presence of Endymion meant for her and Hiiro.  
Hiiro's consciousness returned quickly after he first woke, but his head ached fiercely. He stood up with the same innate speed and grace as he was always accustomed, but almost stumbled when he saw his Rei in the arms of another man, who then kissed her. His lightning reflexes acted, and in truth he hardly knew he had done anything until after his fist had made contact with the other man's nose. Rei, for once, was speechless, and it was Usagi who first spoke, giggling as she did so,

"I think this calls for some explanation."

A/N: Also, if you couldn't tell, "Raia" is Mars' name in the world Mina and Endymion came from. And Aendmon is Endymion. Aendmon and Raia were brother and sister in that world. Also, poor Mina. Pretty much sucks for her all around at this point, yes?

An explanation: Rei thought, since Hiiro could create roses, that Hiiro was actually Endymion. But well. Aendmon is here, and in addition to being a much closer resemblance, he is actually in love with Serenity. Remember what I talked about with the different planes, yes? The Endymion figure is the avatar of the Gaean plane. The Gundam wing dimension is a rogue dimension, so never developed the same avatars. However, Hiiro is an avatar of a plane from whatever cluster of dimensions that the Gundam dimension is originally from. Since that plane is no longer available, Hiiro now draws from the Gaean plane, since it is the closest fit. Hence the roses, being able to sense Usagi, etc.

Please review.


	19. Resentment

Disclaimer: Don't own nothin' Specially since the only character I did own just bit the dust.

A/N: Yet another long update interval

..."I think this calls for some explanations.". . .

. . .Usagi continued blithely on, "Mamo-chan, this is Hiiro Yuy. Rei was supposed to kill him, but that didn't work out so well, so we are now living with him and Quatre, and Duo, and Trowa and Wufei," The prince, of course, hung on his princess' every word; however, Hiiro's identity interested him little. Afterall, the man just hit him. Although Aendmon considered himself a gentleman with a cool head, he found himself quite irked by the situation, if only because he could see no provocation for the attack. That is, until he noticed the way this Hiiro Yuy intently stared at his raven-haired sister. This Hiiro had punched another man in the face with bare cause, and without chance for explanations – yes, he seemed the sort of man Raia would like.

Of course, Hiiro himself not only gazed gently at our fiery heroine, but being human (if only barely) was trying to see into her mind. However, he was being staunchly blocked by sheer will. He certainly wasn't listening to what the blonde was saying until he heard the word "Endymion" pop up. Now that was a name he was familiar with. And one that he had no reason to like. His intense feeling of dislike was only amplified when Rei finally raised her violet eyes, full of hope and happiness, to his. This man, this Endymion who had broken her heart – he could make Rei hope, he could change her mind where Hiiro had failed. The promise of his heart was not enough for her, but Endymion's mere presence was? He wrenched his gaze away from hers, and swiftly turned heading into the city, which had quickly descended back into its usual chaos after Demantoid and his ghouls had "mysteriously disappeared".

A single thought followed him from Rei, merely his name, but laden with so much emotion. Hiiro knew that if Rei were another girl, she might be crying. He could also feel her begin to follow him, leaving happy reunions to happier people. Being surrounded by antagonistic currents of people left Hiiro out of his element, and Rei managed to catch up with him in fairly short order, surprising him as she had a tendency to do. He felt her warm palm on his shoulder, exerting a slight force that brought the two of them side by side. Before Rei opened her lips, Hiiro knew what she was going to say, and knew he wasn't going to like it.

"Don't you understand, Hiiro? What this means? For us?" She spoke demandingly rather than timidly, which only irked Hiiro more. She assumed that he would always be there, ready to come whenever she beckoned.

"I understand that you assume too much."

"And what exactly is that supposed to mean?"

Hiiro never liked to say much, retaining his aura of mystery, but Rei made it apparent that she would be satisfied when he explained himself. Fully.

"Perhaps I've changed my mind."

This finally got the girl's attention. Stopping dead in her tracks, she grabbed Hiiro's collar, forcefully altering his velocity until he faced her.

"Look me in the eyes Hiiro, and tell me you don't want me."

Hiiro breathed deeply, ready to do whatever had to be done to get the hell out of this situation, but when faced with the fire in those purple eyes, found himself unequal to the task.

"If I couldn't convince you to stay with me then, what's to say it won't happen again?"

"I can't sit here and let you tell me I'll hurt you, Hiiro."

The familiar statement reminded Hiiro of how he had always imagined a fire arrow to the stomach might feel: a dash of that sinking feeling, three cups pain, and of course, one tablespoon intense burning sensation.

"Sound familiar, Rei?"

He continued to stand there just until the revelation was full apparent in Rei's eyes, then wrenching himself out of her grasp and hurrying into the crowd and disappearing.

Rei began to walk, just quickly enough so that she wouldn't get trampled by the rushing throng of people, anger quickly bubbling to the surface. Her jaw and fist both were clenched in frustration, and her eyes conveyed the true measure of her frustration. Never had she imagined that her actions might come back to haunt her. Well, she thought, knuckles nearly white, who needs Hiiro Yuy anyway?

A/N: ok, so that was a bit pathetic. If anyone still reads this...well, nevermind. But I'll see if I can't pump out something a bit better for the next chapter.


	20. Consequentially

Trowa had been assisting Quatre with paperwork with Duo, bored out of his mind, pestering both of them, when Hiiro and Wufei and had burst into the room, radiating anger and resentment. Well, Wufei burst into the room, radiating emotion. Hiiro only followed him in and looked as if he might be slightly disturbed by something, though, Quatre thought to himself, that could be considered basically the same thing in Hiiro standards.

"What do you want?"

"It's time for them to leave."

Quatre raised his eyebrows in quiet surprise, as Hiiro lashed out first, not Wufei. However, the Chinese man seemed happy to continue.

"They're interfering with our work, flooding every corner of this place with their silly talk. Are we a motel? It would be dishonorable to throw them out on the street, but this is certainly not the place for them. They have to leave, Quatre."

"I will address that in a second, Wufei. Hiiro, do you have anything to add?"

"Quatre, it is our mission to…get rid of people like that, not give them shelter and food. You see how they're affecting our work. Look at what Duo did, bringing a gundam out in broad daylight. They threaten the success of what we're trying to do."

Quatre gritted his teeth, thinking that Hiiro probably had actually convinced himself of what he was saying – blind, stubborn, fool.

"Hiiro, our mission, is to keep the peace, in order to prevent revolution. In our compound we can keep a close eye on them; also, there's the small fact if more of those monsters keep appearing, we're nearly defenseless against them, excepting perhaps the use of mobile suits. Duo has been reprimanded for his actions, and you won't say anything more of it. Am I understood?"

It was at these times that Quatre felt most uneasy. Hiiro was the superior soldier, and Quatre was commander by convenience only, it seemed. If the perfect soldier were to throw down a challenge…well, it didn't matter, Hiiro was leaving, and Quatre knew that without Hiiro's support, Wufei would not choose to press the matter.

"Hiiro, I'd like a word with you. Alone."

The other three knew Quatre was rarely this confrontational, and while at another time, one or the other might linger to just, at this point, each got up and walked briskly out of the room.

"I'm disappointed in you."

Hiiro responding silence did not surprise Quatre, so he continued.

"You're letting your feelings get in the way. There is nothing I've said to you today that you probably haven't figured out on your own. You let your own emotions convince you of an alternate conclusion that you evidently find easier on yourself."

Meanwhile, the slender brown-haired man had chosen to sit, hunched slightly forward – a position so lacking in the perfect soldier's usual fierce dignity that Quatre lost the heart to chastise any further.

"Hiiro, do you love her?"

"That's not the point."

"Then what is? Hiiro, I know you've never really had a normal relationship—"

"And Rei is no exception," Hiiro interrupted.

Quatre remained undaunted, continuing further.

"—But people who love each other…still hurt each other. A lot. And that doesn't mean they're better off apart. Not all the time at least."

"Quatre. You sound like my father. Theoretically."

The blonde still had no idea whether or not his words had any effect on the other man, but was relieved at the sight of the small, wry grin that now graced Hiiro Yuy's normally cold mouth.

"Oh Hiiro. I've been meaning to tell you all along."

Prussian blue eyes met Quatre's own baby blues with the most solemn glare imaginable on a human face. Quatre manfully attempted to keep a straight face, but failed quickly, Hiiro rising as his comrade gradually started to let the laughter out.

"I'm…going to leave now."

However, when he opened the door, all semblance of a smile drained from his face.

"Hello, Hiiro."

At the sound of that familiar voice, Quatre quickly spun around, taking a breath before replying.

"Uh, W-welcome, Madame Peacecraft."

* * *

Lita was about to slam both of them into the ground until they'd just see sense. It's not like they were fooling anyone, with their covert glances. Covert, angry glances. Covert, angry, wounded glances. Alright. She could go on. She noticed that Hiiro and Rei both seemed to pride themselves on secrecy, except as far as each other was concerned, neither did a very good job. From the second she stepped into this cold, silent place, she had known something was going on, and it wasn't because she was particularly perceptive. And there was one of the perpetrators herself, crouched down behind a corner, peering around it as if waiting for someone to pass.

"Rei, I'd like to have a word w—"

"Shut up, Makoto!"

"Wait, what?" But the brunette was quickly hushed by an angry violet glare and pulled down against the wall to the other girl's level. As a full minute passed, Lita was tempted to speak up once more, when she heard the footsteps accompanied by the mumblings of muted voices.

"It was reasonable at first, even though that one onna made an insufferable racket, but now there's eight of them, along with that damn wolf!"

Both Rei and Lita smiled at that. Although Mina's gigantic direwolf, uncoincidentally named Artemis, was curiously invisible to most people, all the senshi could of course see it. Strangely enough, the five men they had come to lodge with also saw the "4-foot mass of hair" as Duo affectionately named him. A fact which caused quite a stir among the entire group. Yet, in the end, the canine took up lodging with the rest of their ragtag team, despite the continued grumblings of a certain minority.

Eventually Wufei passed, still complaining, while Duo and Trowa walked beside him, paying very little notice to what the Chinese man said. When Lita guessed that they were far enough away, she tried again.

"Rei, what is all this about?"

"You'll see," was all the answer she got, as Rei rose, moving to stand in the middle of the hallway, facing the direction from which the boys had come. Obviously, Lita remained confused, but followed Rei anyway, turning to see a familiar blond girl walking their way. It seemed apparent that the avatar of Venus had not expected to encounter anyone, but she continued forward until she faced the other two girls.

"Mina," Rei began, "why are you following him? This has been going on for at least a day, I know, so don't try lying to me!"

Lita noticed some of the temper the Martian was known for, although a bit quieter than she remembered, but Mina appeared to take it in stride, her silence seeming to originate from a lack of words rather than being cowed by the other girl's attitude. In that pregnant pause, they all heard the same sound – very faintly; without their powers, they probably wouldn't have been able to detect it. Mina's gloomy expression broke into one of her famously bright grins.

"Rei, I do promise to tell you, but you heard it, too. There's a woman down the hall, who isn't, ah, one of us. I'm curious, you're curious, and I'll bet Lita is, too. Let's investigate."

Both smiling, the other girls nodded firmly, and the trio headed quietly back the way Mina had come.

* * *

Although Relena Peacecraft had given up any official positions of power, she still held an honorary one – main advisor to the world council – that held more real power than many people knew. She hadn't quite given up on Hiiro, either, though her pleas to him were slightly less pathetic, and much more direct. Lately, when Hiiro thought back on his old encounters with the young schoolgirl, he realized that in a way, he had enjoyed them. She was a test for him, one that proved that he was still the perfect soldier, still unswayable in the face of his mission. Not to mention the willpower it took not to kill her right then and there, a small voice in his head chimed in. Hiiro for the most part ignored this interjection, returning his thoughts to why the woman was here. It was true that the unnatural creatures who had been popping up around Rei and her friends were certainly a matter of global concern, he suspected that 'Madame Peacecraft', as the world had come to know her (though she insisted that Quatre call her Relena as soon as she stepped in his office), had other designs in coming to what one could technically call his home. Relena, in formal dress, stood up, and Hiiro abruptly realized that her discussion with Quatre was over.

"Hiiro, would you escort me out?"

Oh, she was a direct one, alright.

Being closer to the door, he moved to open it for her, but for the second time in ten minutes, was completely aghast at what he saw.

There stood Rei, in all her glory, sweet smile plastered tightly to her face, the hints of rage burning in her eyes.

A/N: Long chapter for me, neh? And once again, remember that I'm not necessarily trying to fit the actual gundam world. I basically took my view on things that could have happened. For example, I chose to have Treize still alive. Yeah. He's dead. But I like him alive, so he and the gundam pilots are working as semi-secret agents of the world government. Basically. Don't think about it too much. Could cause serious damage.

I wrote about 1/10th of this in five months and the rest in the space of a day. So…it might suck. I know I've left on a cliffhanger as well as with some (at least one) unanswered questions, and I will get to those. I also apologize for any major mischaracterization of gundam wing characters/ gross lack of characterization of Trowa. Like. At all. I'm pretty sure I haven't had him speak a single word in the entire story. I'm not sure I've even had him DO anything. Wow. I feel so neglectful. He's kind of hard to write though, in my opinion. Alright. Lovetoall. Out.


	21. Confrontations

The woman who stood at Hiiro's shoulder was yet another blonde, Rei noted, having been plagued with the…blondeness… of her friends Usagi and Minako for long years. However, this woman's hair lacked the golden sheen of her comrades, Rei thought to herself with some measure of satisfaction. The raven-haired fighter held the advantage at that moment, having known some female was hidden by Quatre's office door; on the other hand, Relena had been clueless to the presence of any women within the almost entirely exclusive group. So while Relena stared with some jealousy at Rei's lithe form, Rei herself found the composure to speak.

"Hello. I don't believe we've met before."

The words were polite enough, but both Hiiro and Relena could feel the not-quite-malice banked within them.

"Oh, Rei," Quatre spoke up, a little panicked, "This is Relena Peacecraft, the"

"I am aware of Madame Peacecraft's position," Rei interrupted, too concentrated on becoming angry to be astounded at meeting the most powerful woman in the world.

"Well then, Relena, this is Rei Hino. She… is…now a member of our group." Quatre saw no reason to explain anything else, especially the existence of six more women living in close quarters with Hiiro. If she and Hiiro happened to encounter any of the other girls on their way out, then, it would fall to Hiiro to explain. When Quatre's eyes met those of the perfect soldier, the blonde merely gave the other man a "you-would-have-done-it-to-me" look.

"Well, then," Relena said, giving Rei a very chilly look, "let's be going, Hiiro. Ms. Hino, it was nice to meet you."

"The pleasure was all mine," Rei replied, drawing each word out through gritted teeth, seemingly trying to strain out the hard edge of her voice – failing miserably, of course. Relena brushed past Rei, who turned slightly in the door to accommodate the other woman, followed by Hiiro who turned his head as he went, letting his eyes linger on Rei, before turning his attention back to the demanding blonde.

As soon as Hiiro and Relena could've been described as 'gone', Rei turned to Quatre, fixing him with a penetrating glare. Quatre sighed, sinking into a chair before mustering up an answer for the impatient soldier of fire.

"She's liked Hiiro for a long time. Always wanted him, from the moment she laid eyes on him, at the beginning of the war. God. We were only children then, but then again, I suppose none of us were really children at all."

"Yes?"

"I don't know. It seemed often that there was something between the two of them, but Relena is a woman who goes after what she wants, and if Hiiro was interested, I'm sure by this point, we'd have little perfect soldiers coming to visit 'Uncle Quatre' and be annoyed by Duo."

Rei could tell that Quatre was trying to mollify her, and at this point, there was nothing, technically, she could be mad about. But she still had cause enough to glower silently, and glower she did.

Before Quatre could say anything, the door burst open.

"Have you seen-?" A cloaked man demanded before he was even entirely in the door, stopping short when he saw the girl he considered his sister standing in front of him.

"Good God! Will you people just leave. me. ALONE?" Quatre growled, so greatly in contrast to his usual manner, that the other two people in the room immediately took a step back. After they thought about it for a second, they took another.

"Er…I was just looking for Rei, and if you two aren't doing anything important, I would just like to speak to her for a second," Aendmon spoke nervously

"No, Quatre and I are done here. Let's go," Rei was equally as nervous, as she edged slowly towards the now open door.

"I'm sorry, it's not your fault, at all, really. It's just been," Quatre paused, his thumb and index finger stretched over his eyes, "a very long day. You two can stay in here, if you'd like. I think I'll just take a walk."

Rei and Aendmon both edged out of the man's way as he closed the door behind him.

"You wanted to talk to me then?" Rei was calmer now, her anger having been cowed into submission by Quatre's outburst. It was true that he and she had barely spoken two words after the affectionate hug-and-kiss she had received in the streets a few days ago.

"There are several things I'm concerned about. The first is that scar."

Rei rolled her eyes; leave it to a man to be hung up on one stupid superficial mark.

"I got in a fight. I hardly see how that's important," she eventually replied, her tone clearly implying that it was one subject she was not going to discuss.

"Ok, then, I also heard you almost broke Wufei's jaw. With your bare hands."

"I lost my temper."

"Raia, usually when you lose your temper, you scream or stick your tongue out. I have a hard time believing that intending to maim someone has become general practice for you. Speaking of which, Serenity tells me that you met Hiiro because you were being paid to kill him."

"Well, obviously, I wasn't really being paid to kill him, I was being sent to be killed so Usagi would be vulnerable."

"Assassin is hardly an appropriate job for a princess of –"

"Oh, give it up, Mamoru! This is not your world. It's a little more violent than the one you come from. I did what I had to, ok? To save your precious princess! Because, god knows, Usagi was about as helpful as a rock!"

"I'm sure you could've found some other way."

"It was assassin or prostitute, _Aendmon_. Now you tell me, which would you rather your 'little sister' do, kill people for money, or sleep with them? I know I was a bit out of line with Wufei, but I will not apologize for anything I had to do to keep Serenity alive."

For a moment they faced each other, the room incredibly silent. But after spending years as Raia's brother, playmate, and eventually friend, Aendmon assumed that although Raia and Rei were two different people, he would most likely have to back down.

"I'm sorry. It isn't easy, you know. You and Usagi are supposedly Raia and Sorenna, but you're not exactly the same. Yet not different enough to really matter. Then there's Mina, who is the same girl I've ever known, but now is farther from me than any of you."

"Mina, eh? She's been following Wufei around."

"The loud one? Why?"

"Don't ask me. I don't analyze, just observe. I had cornered her when…"

At this remembrance Rei smiled and blushed a bit at their girlish response to the sound of the stranger's voice, but immediately frowned when reminded of the awkward confrontation that had occurred soon afterward.

"Anyway, about this Hiiro…"

"Add him to the list of things I won't talk to you about."

"I was just going to see that he did seem like the type of man you would like…"

Rei merely narrowed her eyes at him, sticking out her tongue in the process.

"Well, Aendmon, if for nothing more than to shut you up, I'm going to tell you this. In my universe, you and I were not related, and we once went on a date, which is a courtship ritual."

She smiled and sauntered out the door, leaving the poor man floundering in her wake, trying to get the thought completely out of his head.

A/N: Here you go. Awww, widdle Quatre-san is so cute when he's mad. What to look for in the next chapter? The surfacing of a new enemy, and a Hiiro/Rei confrontation. And lots of OOC-ness.

Just as a btw, I used to really hate Relena, but now I simply dislike her, but still kind of respect her, at least at the end of the series. Definitely not in the beginning. No respect there.


	22. Shock

Chapter 22

The pair walked in silence for a full fifteen minutes, before the woman spoke.

"Hiiro, you know what I have to say to you."

The man turned his head away from her, a soft sound from the back of his throat the only indication that he had heard her at all.

"Hiiro, look at me! I just want us to have some happiness finally. I want what every other woman wants. Why can't I have that?"

"No one's stopping you."

He intentionally looked away from her rather than at her. She was smart, determined, beautiful, but he could never give her what she wanted. And it was about time she looked somewhere else.

"How can you say that to me, Hiiro?"

They still walked steadily, and midstride, Hiiro felt something grab at his gut, and snap something intangible inside. He suddenly had the urge to look Relena Peacecraft in the eye and be completely straight with her.

"Relena, I never wanted you. I never wanted you to want me. Now there's something I want, and if you get in the way of that, I swear I will kill you. Here's the door, goodbye."

However, our dear Hiiro's wonderfully succinct farewell was tragically interrupted by the appearance of a rather large monster making its way through the front door. His instincts kicked in, calf muscles pulling then pushing to propel the perfect soldier into the air, while his arms grabbed Relena in an effort to carry them both out of the path of one large furry arm. They landed roughly, and Hiiro quickly disentangled himself and rose to his feet, shoving Relena into a corner with eyes that said 'don't move.' Without a word, the gleam of metal flashed in his hand, and he spun to face the inhuman intruder. Soldier's eyes scanned what stood just inside the open door, evaluating and analyzing, just as Hiiro imagined his opponent to be doing on some intellectual level at least.

The creature seemed to be a sort of human spider, over 7 feet in height, standing upright on two legs while brandishing the other six threateningly at Hiiro. Inintimidated. His results were not encouraging, but he lacked the time to be disheartened as dozens of gossamer strands suddenly emerged, flying towards Hiiro at such a speed, that even the perfect soldier was only able to avoid a few before he found himself completely incapacitated.

Pain wracked his body as the wire-like webbing slowly twisted his muscles and bones against themselves, and threads around his neck threatened to render him unconscious, briefly, and then dead. In fact, Hiiro's fate had never seemed gloomier than that moment, but almost predictably, a blaze of fire entered the scene, flying from the upper left of Hiiro's vision to bash her feet into the head of Hiiro's would-be-killer. At once, Hiiro could feel the strain on his limbs and neck weaken as the monster turned its attention to the newcomer. Thankfully for them both, Rei began more luckily than Hiiro had, pulling her legs away from the monster as she realized it wasn't going to topple, and flipping around to land in a crouch. Flicking her eyes to her left, she recognized the sword she had given to Hiiro, and scrambled towards it, just avoiding a second onslaught of the spider's deadly web. She hacked wildly at the threads that held Hiiro, having to use superhuman acrobatics to keep out of the same trap. Finally, he was free of the thing, with Rei pulling him out of the way as he tried to brush away the web fragments that clung to his clothing.

With Hiiro flung safely back into Relena's corner, Rei unleashed a steady stream of white hot flame, that caused the creature to writhe in apparent agony, while hopefully neutralizing anything that it might throw at her.

"Hiiro, get her out of here, now!"

Hiiro found it difficult to look away from the brightness in front of him, but turned to Relena anyway, placing a firm hand around her arm. The lady shrugged it off, fixing her eyes coldly on him.

"You made your point clear, Hiiro Yuy. I'll just be going."

As the door slammed in his face, Hiiro took a second to be impressed with her chilly calm, after being faced with one of these things for the first time. Turning around, Hiiro noted with relief that the spider-monster seemed to be wilting, then disintegrating under the heat of Rei's fire, but Hiiro himself couldn't tell whether he meant the weapon she wielded or the nature of her entrancing stare. And he realized that Quatre had been right.

Eventually, only ashes remained, and Rei sagged a little, the shadow of over-exertion plainly overhanging her face. Hiiro almost went to her side, but decided to keep his distance while voicing something that had been on his mind the entire time.

"You were following me."

"I was not!" Rei was braced for a screaming match, but realized that Hiiro had not put the issue up for argument. What he knew, there was no denying. And her secrets turned to dust at his touch.

"Don't get any ideas!" she continued, thinking only to preserve her carefully crafted image, "It doesn't mean anything. **I. don't. need. you!**"

"Stop that, Rei. Refusing to admit to something doesn't make it untrue, no matter how much you try. Believe me, I know from experience, and I know you. Stop."

It may have been credit to Mina's excellence in silent approach or Hiiro and Rei's absolute absorption in each other, but either way, both were stupefied enough by her sudden interruption that Mina caught a silent moment to continue her lecture.

"He loves you. You love him. Stop being imbeciles about the whole thing, or I will lock you in a very small space until you talk through this, or both die. Am I clear?"

The two of them simply stared at the ease with which the blonde spoke of all these things that neither of them could bear to hear or say, but Mina did not wish, evidently, to dwell on the subject, as she continued to move forward to the small scattering of ashes on the ground.

"I found you well after you had things in hand, Rei, but early enough to see something you might've missed," she said, carefully modulating her voice to avoid the danger zone of Rei's temper. Mina then knelt, sifting through the larger piles of ash, until she lifted up the chain of a necklace, revealing a circular locket. Rei's eyes went wide at the sight of it – something about it tickled her foggy memory. Both girls took a couple steps towards each other until they were close enough to observe it together.

Both the locket and chain were silver, and the locket was engraved with a stylized flame. It was Mina who flipped the catch, revealing a lock of blond hair coiled in one half, and a note folded into the other. She removed it slowly, but Rei snatched it from her before her fingers could get to unfolding it. Rei's, though, trembled as they pushed back the corners, and she read the message.

"I have returned for you."

The realization of who the message was from and what it meant combined with the significant fatigue from the fight, caused Rei Hino fainted dead away.

A/N: I'm a horrible horrible writer for not updating more often, but I had to scrap and postpone my original idea for what I was planning for later. I'm sure all of you can figure out who the secret admirer is, and yeah, it's kind of trite. But. It's stuff.


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